Tales from the Jedi Academy
by Jace911
Summary: What would JK3: JA have been like if, instead of boring and bland Jaden Korr, we had followed Mara Jade as she tried once again to complete her Jedi training? Let's find out!
1. Homecoming, Part One

**Tales from the Jedi Academy**

**Chapter One – Homecoming, Part One**

With a roar of sublight engines, the transport shuttle entered Yavin IV's atmosphere.

Mara Jade, former Emperor's Hand and current smuggler, grimaced as the blocky ship rattled slightly from reentry. _Skywalker needs to shell out a few more credits for a decent mechanic,_ she thought. Another rumble caused the vessel's airframe to vibrate, and she tightened her grip on the arm of her acceleration couch. _Or better yet, a decent pilot._

The pilot in question, a young man dressed in a New Republic military fatigues, twisted in his seat towards the rear of the shuttle where over a dozen prospective students lounged in their seats as they waited for the end of their journey. "We'll be at the Academy in just a few minutes," he reported.

Mara bit back the urge to remind the pilot to keep his eyes on his instruments; getting in an argument with the shuttle jockey would be a wonderful way to vent her anxiety, but it probably wouldn't endear her to any of the other potential Jedi. Normally she wouldn't give a womp rat's backside what other beings thought of her–in her experience, the less attention, the better–but at the same time she knew that for better or for worse she would be spending the next several weeks, if not months, with the occupants of the shuttle. _It'd be a rotten first impression,_ she told herself, not entirely convinced as she shifted her position on the couch to run a calculating gaze over the others. Mara had chosen a window seat near the front of the shuttle, allowing her to keep an eye on the cockpit, the view outside…and the other passengers. Almost everyone else had opted to mingle near the middle seats, and many were conversing in hushed voices.

It was a motley bunch of recruits–_students,_ she reminded herself–collected from all over the New Republic. Humans, Twi'Leks, Zabrak, Kel'Dor, Bothans, Sullustans …all of them had come to Yavin IV to study the ways of the Force and become Jedi Knights. The guardians of peace and justice throughout the galaxy.

Mara snorted, then jerked slightly as yet another shudder ran through the shuttle. _Blasted rookie,_ she thought furiously. Mara knew that she was a great pilot; she'd been flying for Karrde for years now, and as an Emperor's Hand she'd been trained to pilot a variety of ships.

The downside of those skills, however, was that she was a terrible passenger.

She was a heartbeat from getting up and telling the pilot to give up the controls when she felt someone sit down beside her.

Mara turned to her left to see a human male with brown hair and eyes, barely into his twenties. He was dressed in a faux-knockoff of the vest, tunic, and boots she'd seen some of Skywalker's older Jedi wearing. On them, it looked almost regal. On this kid, it looked like a Life Day celebration costume. The other students hadn't bothered with anything resembling Jedi tunics or robes, and were dressed in a variety of styles befitting their respective homeworlds. Mara herself was attired in a violet bantha-hide jacket and brown pants with boots, with her BlasTech and lightsaber riding on either hip. She'd left her sleeve blaster with Aves on Coruscant, warning him what would happen if he managed to lose it. Her red hair, normally held up in a tie while she was doing business with one of Talon's many associates, had been let down to her shoulders.

The youngster noticed Mara's sideways glance and favored her with a grin. "This is gonna be so great," he said conspiratorially.

When Mara turned away and rolled her eyes, she felt him slide closer to her. "Aren't you excited?" he asked eagerly, and she glanced back to find that he was practically leaning over her. "We're going to be Jedi! Learning the ways of the Force, building a lightsaber–"

Mara placed a hand on his chest and gave him a not-so-gentle push away. "That's great, kid. Now, do you think you can bear to be more than three centimeters from my face?"

Mara had the guilty satisfaction of seeing her new friend's grin fall from his face like a leaky coolant in reaction to the sharpness of her tone, and he took a small step back. "I–I'm sorry, I didn't mean–"

Mara sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. _Wonderful. So much for avoiding attention._ A few of the other students were already throwing her looks for her outburst. "It's okay. Just a little personal space, huh?"

The youth nodded enthusiastically, sitting back down beside her. "Yeah, sure. I'm Rosh, by the way. Rosh Penin."

Mara nodded and turned to face the viewport, a subtle hint that she wanted to be alone with her thoughts for the moment. The shuttle was skimming the tops of the trees now, barely a dozen meters above the canopy as it came in for an approach to the Academy. Mara could see a handful of the ancient Massassi temples that dotted the rainforests all over this side of the moon, and her thoughts wandered to the last time she had visited the Academy. It had been years, and she hadn't left gracefully. After Kyp Durron had stolen her personal Z-95–she gritted her teeth at the memory–the starfighter she had flown to Yavin the first time she'd been here, she had become angry and anxious to leave, cutting her training off almost before it began. Most of the other students had probably thought she was a quitter; it was a good thing she hadn't bothered to connect with most of them.

Except for Corran.

Mara smiled absently at the thought of the Corellian, remembering their time together at the Academy. Outside of Karrde's organization, Mara had very few true friends…and Corran was someone she considered a very close friend, especially after their run-in with Exar Kun's millennia-old spirit in the Sith Lord's sanctum. His body badly damaged by the spirit of Kun, his mind tormented by false images of his kidnapped wife and his dead father, yet Corran had still summoned the resolve to weakly taunt Kun's Force ghost defiantly. _A true-blooded Corellian,_ Mara thought wryly. She'd later learned that Corran, with help from Skywalker and a number of others, had succeeded in tracking down the Imperials who had stolen his wife away from him and had rescued her. _Good for you._

She wondered if he was still at the Academy, or if his duties in Rogue Squadron had–

"So, what's your name?"

Mara blinked and turned back to Rosh, snapping out of her reverie. He was leaning on the armrest between them with his fingers locked in his lap, staring intently at her as he waited for an answer. _Pup doesn't know when to give up, does he?_ she thought.

"Mara," she replied after a moment's hesitation, making a command decision on the spot. _If I'm going to spend the foreseeable future with these people, I might as well make an effort to get to know them,_ she reasoned. Normally she stopped asking questions after names were exchanged and preferred to quietly observe and collect data…but Rosh didn't seem like the silent type.

In fact, he didn't seem like the solitary type, either. Mara noticed he was quietly massaging his knuckles in his lap, the joints popping as he did so. "Fidgety thing, aren't you?" she remarked.

Rosh glanced up in a rodent-like motion and shrugged, trying to act nonchalant. "I can't help it; I wanna make a good impression…"

"Well, the first thing you need to do is calm down," Mara said. "You seem pretty nervous."

"Aren't you?" Rosh asked, mild surprise evident in his voice. He glanced down–"Oh, well, why would you be?" he corrected, nodding at the hilt clipped to her waist. "You've already got a lightsaber, so you're probably way ahead of me!"

Mara leaned back in her seat and crossed her arms, a disquieted look passing briefly over her features. "Yeah, well, looks can be deceiving," she answered.

Rosh noticed the shift in her mood their topic had brought, so he apparently decided to change the subject. "So, where'd you get that lightsaber?" he asked innocently.

Mara was silent for a moment as memories flashed through her mind. Skywalker…finding his ruined fighter in the middle of deep space, taking him to Karrde's base on Myrkr as a captive, and then subsequently letting him go after Solo and Calrissian had showed up…helping him rescuing Karrde from Grand Admiral Thrawn's personal Star Destroyer, the battle for the _Katana_ fleet…the trek through the jungle on Wayland…and the final battle with the mad clone of Jorus C'baoth.

The battle where Mara had saved Skywalker's life.

His words echoed through her mind as she saw the two of them standing on the roof of the Imperial Palace afterwards. He'd handed her his old lightsaber, the one that had been made by his father and passed down to him by Obi-Wan Kenobi, the final link to his past. When she had asked why, he'd simply shrugged and said, _Because you earned it. Because you're on your way to becoming a Jedi and you'll need it._

_Mostly, though, because I _want _you to have it._

"Mara?"

For the second time in a handful of minutes, Rosh's voice jerked her out of her past. He was still waiting for an answer to his question.

Mara offered him a sad smile and shook her head. "It's a long story."

Rosh shrugged and glanced towards the cockpit. "We've got time. I'd guess it'll take our pilot at least ten minutes to land this crate without smashing into the Great Temple."

Despite herself, Mara smiled. "I thought I was the only one who noticed his lack of appreciable talent."

Rosh mirrored her smile and stretched his arms on the back of the acceleration couch. "Yeah, well…when you've been flying all your life you tend to spot things like that."

"You're a pilot?" Mara asked skeptically.

"Well no, but I grew up on Coruscant. If you want to get anywhere on that planet, you'd better know how to fly. Speeders _or_ starships–"

_Wonderful,_ Mara thought as Rosh launched into an anecdote about his background. _Another hotshot flyboy. At least he isn't from a farm–_

"–was born on Agamar, but I don't really remember much about it. Except for the fields, I loved to go and–"

–_typical._

"But enough about me," Rosh said abruptly. He turned to face Mara again, and she was slightly surprised at the innocence–and naiveté–in his eyes. "You gonna tell me where you got your lightsaber?"

Mara hesitated, then conceded with a half-shrug. _Why not?_ "Well, I guess the best place to start would be–"

Mara's danger sense flared like a landing beacon, but before she could detect what direction the threat was coming from the shuttle jolted again, much harder. Not from reentry or pilot error; something had hit them.

"Repulsorlifts are failing!" the pilot cried out as he wrestled with the control stick. "Hold on!" The ship jerked again, and this time Mara heard something give in the aft section with a screech of tearing metal. Several of the students screamed in fear as the shuttle began losing altitude rapidly. Through the viewport she could see the dense jungle rising up to meet them–

The shuttle smashed into the top of the canopy, snapping ancient tree trunks like toothpicks. The impact sent Mara flying forward, and the last thing she saw was the seat in front of her rushing to meet her head.


	2. Homecoming, Part Two

**Tales from the Jedi Academy**

**Chapter Two - Homecoming, Part Two**

Mara came to slowly, much more slowly than she would have liked. The first thing she noticed when she regained consciousness was the pain. Her head throbbed where she'd smacked it against the back of an acceleration couch, and as she opened her eyes she had to fight off a sudden wave of dizziness. Gingerly she reached a hand to her brow; her fingers brushed something warm and sticky. "Oh, yeah," she grumbled, shifting to get her hands underneath her and rising to a sitting position, "that's just what I need."

Then she blinked. _What in the Nine Hells-?_

Mara was no longer sitting in her seat on the Jedi shuttle. For that matter, she was no longer even _in_ the shuttle. The ship was lying on its belly in a small trench it had dug for itself upon landing, and there was a large gash in its starboard side where it had brushed against a boulder during the landing. Mara was lying at the foot of a tree at least six meters away from the opening; far too much of a distance for her to have been thrown by the crash. Her BlasTech was missing from its holster, but Skywalker's lightsaber–_her_ lightsaber–was still attached to its clip.

Gingerly she stood up, cursing the loss of her blaster and making sure to give herself time to find her balance. She took a few cautious steps towards the shuttle, her eyes and ears alert. "Hello!" she called, glancing around the crash site. "Hey, anybody there?" She reached the lip of the gash and ducked under it, getting a look at the inside of the shuttle. It looked mostly intact, with the exception of the baggage that had been stored above everyone's heads. Personal belongings had been tossed around as if from a small hurricane, but she couldn't see anybody…dead or alive.

She chose to take that as a good sign.

Mara's carry-on, thankfully, had been small enough to tuck away beneath her seat and was still firmly wedged in place. Tugging it free, she set it on the seat and undid the clasps, flipping it open. Inside were a variety of survival tools: ration bars, portable climbing gear, two canteens, along with several other items that would be of use to her. She removed one of the canteens and resealed the case, hefting it onto one shoulder–and jumped slightly as the comlink at her waist beeped.

Mara frowned at the device and unclipped it. Karrde and his people were the only ones who were supposed to have her frequency, and they were light-years away. So who could be–?

"_Mara? Mara, it's Luke. Do you copy?"_

She smirked as the familiar voice emerged from the speaker. She flicked the transmit button and held the device up to her mouth. "I'm here, Skywalker," she answered as she surveyed the wreckage of the shuttle. "You sure know how to make a girl feel welcome."

* * *

Luke closed his eyes and sighed quietly in relief upon hearing Mara's voice. "Are you hurt?" he asked, ignoring her opening jest.

_"I hit my head when we landed, but I'm fine. Where the kark is everyone else?"_

"Uliar's taking them to the nearby Massassi temple to the east of your location," Luke said, standing from his desk. His quarters at the Academy were almost completely identical to those of the students–at his insistence–and contained only a few pieces of furniture. Still holding the comlink up to his face, he waved a hand to nudge the door open and strode out at a fast pace. "A shuttle's already en route there," he continued. "It should get to the temple right after you do."

_"Got it."_

Luke rounded the corner to head towards the hangar bay turbolift…and stopped. For a moment, he could have sworn he had sensed someone in this hallway. He had been about to ask them to join him in the rescue team–as the Master of the Academy, he had that authority–but there was nobody there. Frowning, he started to stretch out with the Force…and shrugged, resuming his pace. There were new students who needed his help, and he didn't have time to go chasing after what was probably nothing. "Be careful, Mara," he said, stepping into the lift and keying for the ground floor. "Yavin IV's not exactly a tourist trap. It's almost as dangerous as Wayland."

He heard a dry chuckle from Mara's end. _"Skywalker, if I didn't know you better I'd say you sound worried."_

"Just be careful."

_"Relax, I'll be–"_ her voice trailed away abruptly, and when it returned she had lowered it to a whisper. _"Someone's coming. I've gotta go."_

There was a soft _click_ from the comlink. "Mara?" Luke murmured. "Mara, come in!"

* * *

Mara switched off her comlink and slipped it onto her belt, taking care not to make any loud noises. Outside, she could hear the soft sound of boots crunching on foliage. Her hand instinctively darted to the empty holster on her thigh; she mentally cursed herself for somehow losing her blaster and removed her lightsaber from her belt instead. Stretching out with her rough and untrained Force senses, she tried to get a feel on who was approaching…but all she felt was the fuzzy flickering of anxiety mixed with worry. She slid the second strap of the case over her other arm and silently moved to flank the gash in the shuttle's side as she waited for the newcomer to draw closer. As he did, Mara was able to get a more clear reading on him; he felt as though he had lost something, and now was searching for it with growing feelings of worry and guilt. Mara tried to push deeper into his mind…a mind that felt vaguely familiar.

She almost sighed in relief as realization hit her. "Rosh?"

Mara heard the Coruscanti start at the sound of her voice. "Mara? Star's end, you scared the poodoo out of me! Are you in there?"

"Yeah, I'm coming out." Clipping her lightsaber back on her belt, Mara bent down to duck beneath the lip of the opening, taking care not to bang her survival pack on the sharp edges. Standing near where she had woken up minutes ago was Rosh Penin, looking decidedly worse for wear. His tunic was torn along the side, and he had several scratches on his face and arms, presumably from the local flora.

Her BlasTech was clenched tightly in one of his hands, pointed–thankfully–at the ground.

"Nice of you to help yourself," she growled, nodding at the blaster. Rosh glanced down at the weapon and shrugged sheepishly. "I didn't think I should go into the jungle without a weapon. Besides, you've still got your lightaber."

Mara ground her teeth for a moment, then snorted softly. He _did_ have a point. "Fair enough. Why are you still hanging around here? I thought everyone else was heading to the evac point."

Rosh gestured to the base of the tree she had awoken under. "When everyone else left the shuttle, you were still unconscious. Me and one of the other students moved you over here while we waited for you to wake up. Uliar wanted to rig a travois to carry you until then, but I told them I'd stay behind and look after you."

"Who's this Uliar guy everyone keeps mentioning?" Mara asked. "Don't tell me _he's_ the pilot?"

Rosh shrugged again. "Well actually, yeah. He is."

"Great," Mara said as she started towards the edge of the small clearing, her other hand never straying far from her lightsaber. "At least now I know who to thank for the smooth ride. Come on, we'd better get a move on. If we hurry we can reach the temple to the east before the rescue shuttle does."

Rosh hurried to walk behind her, stepping awkwardly through the foliage as they entered the jungle proper. "How do you know that's where they're picking us up?" he asked.

"Skywalker told me," Mara said over her shoulder.

"You talked to Master Skywalker?" Rosh echoed, a touch of awe in his tone.

"Wasn't much of a conversation," she replied, dodging the subject. Rosh sounded like he was a fan, and the last thing she wanted was him fawning over her because of her association with the farmboy.

* * *

They made relatively good time through the jungle on their way to the temple, despite stopping more than once to fend off small packs of howlers, the local scavenger predators. As Mara toed the corpse of one with her boot, she recalled her trek through Myrkr's forests with Skywalker and his droid in tow, trying to avoid the Imperial search teams and the predatory wildlife at the same time.

_At least they aren't vornskrs,_ Mara thought as she eyed the howler's body. It was a four-legged reptile with oddly broad shoulders and a short, serpent-like neck. _Then again, at least vornskrs are quieter when they hunt,_ she amended. Howlers got their nickname from the piercing shriek-wail they used to signal others. Her ears were still ringing slightly from the cry that this particular specimen had let loose before being bisected by her lightsaber, which wasn't helping her mounting headache.

Rosh poked the body of another howler with Mara's blaster, wrinkling his nose at the putrid smell rising from the charred hole in its abdomen. "They should've called them stinkers," he said as he stood from his inspection. "They smell like a compost pile."

"Just be glad they aren't real predators," Mara chided him as they continued on. "Lightsaber or not, I'd rather not run into something in a vornskr's weight category. In jungles like this, bigger usually means badder."

Rosh arched and eyebrow at her, almost stumbling over a particularly lumpy root as they walked. "What's a vornskr? Sounds nasty."

"Big four-legged animal with jaws like an industrial clamp and tails like poisonous whips." she said. "And trust me, that poison hurts."

Rosh snickered. "Mind telling me what planet you ran into them on? Y'know, so I can avoid it at all costs?"

Mara smiled slightly at his banter. "A little backwater called Myrkr. The whole planet's almost nothing but forests, and the whole forest's almost nothing but predators."

"What made you wanna go there?" Rosh asked incredulously.

Mara shrugged, but with the pack on her shoulders the motion was wasted. "I was a member of a smuggling group that was based out of there for a while. It was far enough off the beaten path that nobody bothered to look for us there, and the forests were dangerous enough to keep the locals from poking around…"

They continued like this for a while, with Rosh eagerly prodding her with questions about her background while she tried to answer without giving away too many details. After a few minutes of back and forth Mara began to relax marginally, and even started asking questions of her own just to keep the conversation alive. Usually she wouldn't have minded traveling in silence–in fact, most of the time she would have preferred it–but for some reason she felt obligated to at least attempt to keep Rosh engaged. The youth was out of his element and unsure of himself, happily following Mara simply because she appeared to have a plan.

Besides, he _had_ stayed behind to make sure she would be okay.

For another half an hour the two of them trekked through the jungles of Yavin, talking almost as casually as if they had been having breakfast at the Academy. Rosh was decent company, if a bit chatty for her preferences. Still, he reminded Mara of the innocent-farmboy attitude that occasionally showed through Skywalker's sage Jedi barriers, an attitude that she found refreshing compared to the pragmatism that she was faced with everyday in Karrde's organization…and to the pragmatism that she herself displayed.

Eventually, they reached another clearing…and as Mara brushed aside the thick-leaved branches obscuring her vision, her eyes widened in surprise.

The clearing, a half-circle perhaps two dozen meters in diameter, opened up to a pair of massive thorn-shaped boulders jutting out of the ground and above the canopy like fangs. Filling the gap between the two peaks was a stone wall covered with hieroglyphs that Mara didn't recognize.

And in the middle of the wall was a door.

The architecture of the wall, Mara noted as she and Rosh approached, was similar to that of the Great Temple where Skywalker had founded his Academy. The stone was a dull gold color, with bronze highlights that accentuated the hieroglyphs. In contrast, the door itself was made of some kind of polished durasteel, with scratches and stains on it that could have only come from untold years' worth of wear and tear.

The wall itself extended almost fifteen meters into the air, and Mara found herself craning her neck to look up at the top. "I think it's safe to say we won't be climbing over this," she said wryly, turning her attention to the wall around the door. "Doesn't look like there's a lever or anything…so how do we open it?"

Rosh glanced at the treeline near the rightmost outcropping. "Why not just go around it?"

Mara shook her head. "I doubt the builders of the temples put this here for kicks. If I had to guess," she trailed off, twisting to get a good look at the protrusions flanking the wall, "I'd say that those outcropping are just the tip of some sort of natural ridge. Whoever made this wall probably carved away a chunk between them and put this here as a gate, using the ridge itself as a natural barrier to wall off the temple grounds."

"But how did the others get past it?" Rosh asked. "They should have come this way, we'd have seen their trail if they hadn't."

Mara shrugged. "Easy answer: they didn't. Uliar probably took them around one side of the ridge, hoping to find a spot to climb over."

Rosh sighed. "Great. So how do we find them?"

"We don't. Either they'll find a way over and meet us at the temple," Mara said, unclipping her lightsaber, "or they'll head back here and find our handiwork."

Rosh frowned and turned to look at her. "What handiwo–"

_Snap-hiss._ The blue blade of Mara's lightsaber snapped into existence.

"–oh nevermind."

Mara looked up and down the length of the door, trying to judge its thickness and the best place to cut it. Rosh stuck the BlasTech in the waistband of his trousers and leaned against the wall, crossing his arms and releasing a yawn–

–which promptly turned into a yell of surprise as the stone behind him retracted a handful of centimeters. Mara watched as the door slid upward, loose gravel dropping from its edges as it groaned its way into the wall. When the dust had settled, she sheathed her saber and tossed Rosh a smirk. "Nice job."

'Uh, yeah," he said as she removed her pack and set it in the dirt. "No problem. What are you doing?"

"Marking the switch so Uliar and the others will be able to get through if they come back." Mara removed one of her ration bars and tore the foil off the end. She smeared the edge of the bar around the perimeter of the stone Rosh had moved, taking care to make sure the marker was in plain sight. Her work finished, she crumpled up the wrapper and shoved it back into her pack before shouldering the whole thing again. "Let's go."

With Mara in the lead, the two of them passed through the doorway. It rumbled once they were clear and lowered itself again, and this time Mara could hear the faint sounds of machinery coming from within the wall. "The Massassi sure loved to overcomplicate things," she said dryly. "Come on, the temple shouldn't be far now."

As Mara predicted, the temple itself was only a short hike from the wall. The jungle was just as rampant within the walls, but the trees stopped short of a small lake in the center of the temple grounds. Resting within the middle of the lake was the temple, a huge obsidian ziggurat that stood out easily from the wilderness surrounding it. As the two of them approached, almost jogging as the landscape slanted downwards towards the lake, Mara heard voices emerge from the trees ahead. The jungle ended in another clearing ahead, but a large boulder in front of the pair prevented her from seeing what occupied it. She strained her ears, trying to tune out the background noise of Yavin IV's wildlife–

–and froze. No, she had to be hearing it wrong.

But what if she wasn't?

Rosh stopped beside her, his expression curious. "What's–Mmph!"

Mara wrapped an arm around Rosh's neck, clamping her hand over his mouth and holding a finger to her lips. He nodded, his eyes widening as he saw the deadly seriousness in her eyes, and she released him. The two of them crept forward to the boulder, flattening themselves against it. Mara edged along one side, using her peripheral vision to try and catch a glimpse of the clearing's occupants…

She swore mentally as she caught a flash of white armor and death's head helmets. Shifting back to where Rosh was waiting, she pitched her voice as low as she could while still allowing Rosh to hear her. "We've got company."

"Who?" he whispered back.

"Stormtroopers," Mara replied. "The Empire's here."


	3. Homecoming, Part Three

**Tales from the Jedi Academy**

**Chapter Three - Homecoming, Part Three**

Rosh stared at her as if she'd just admitted to being a Sith. "What?" he whispered frantically, leaning past her to try and see the clearing. "Wha…how many are there?"

Mara peaked around the edge of the boulder once again for another glance. "I count six in the clearing," she said grimly. "Plus however many are in the jungle, and you can bet there'll be more."

Rosh tightened his grip on the BlasTech, glancing around nervously as if expecting more stormtroopers to burst from the treeline. "How can there be Imps on Yavin?" he asked as Mara unclipped her lightsaber from her belt. "Wouldn't the Jedi sense them or something?"

Mara was silent for a moment as she considered his words. It _was_ unlikely the Imperials would have been able to land anywhere near the Academy without drawing attention. _Something to worry about later,_ she thought. "Doesn't matter now," Mara murmured. "They're here, so the only question now is what we're going to do about it."

Rosh eyed her incredulously. "You're not seriously thinking of trying to take'em all on, are you?"

Mara hesitated. In fact, she had been thinking along those exact lines. With Rosh covering her while she moved in close with her lightsaber, she had been reasonably confident that the two of them could take out the Imperials before they summoned reinforcements…but now, as she looked into Rosh's eyes she saw nothing but a scared kid clutching a blaster, not a soldier. _Blast it all,_ she thought angrily. _I never thought the day would come when I would miss Skywalker._

She sighed and lowered her lightsaber, moving her thumb away from the activator. "No, of course not," she said with a trace of bitter sarcasm.

Rosh almost wilted with relief, not noticing her tone. "So what now?"

_Good question._ Mara bit her lip as she cast her gaze around the clearing, her mind presenting and discarding ideas one after another. Another peak around the corner of their hiding place, and she had an inspiration. "There," she whispered, jerking her chin in the direction of the unsuspecting stormtroopers. "That tree leaning over the clearing; see it?" The tree in question was big; at least two meters wide and several tall. It was perched at an angle over the edge of the clearing, the roots on its jungle side showing from beneath the earth as gravity and age worked to drag it down.

Rosh edged around her to glance over her shoulder. "Yeah, what about it?"

"They're standing almost right underneath it," Mara pointed out. "If I can get to the trunk without them seeing me, I can bring the whole thing down on them. That'll even the odds quite a bit."

Rosh squinted as his eyes moved back and forth between the lounging Imperials and the ancient tree. "What happens if they see you?" he asked.

"They won't," Mara answered firmly. _Here goes…_ "Especially since they'll be too busy trading bolts with _you._"

It took Rosh a second to grasp the significance of what she'd just said. "Wait a minute," Rosh said flatly, his eyes widening slightly. "You want _me_ to–?"

"I'm not asking you to charge them head on," Mara said, cutting him off. "Just keep them busy until I can get around behind them."

Rosh bit his lip nervously and was silent for a moment. "Okay," he said, nodding as if to reassure himself. "Sure, I can do that."

Mara dug into one of the pockets on her survival pack, withdrawing a spare comlink. "Here," she offered. "I'll signal you with two clicks when I'm in position. That'll be your queue."

Rosh nodded again, his breathing noticeably heavier as she removed the survival pack from her shoulders and set it down. Even to her untrained senses, the kid was radiating fear like a landing beacon. _Probably his first firefight,_ she reasoned. One of Skywalker's platitudes entered Mara's head unbidden, and almost without thinking about it she said "A Jedi knows no fear, Rosh."

His eyebrows lifted in surprise at the phrase, but before he could say anything in response Mara turned and entered the jungle.

* * *

While making her way deeper into the treeline, Mara could hear the stormtroopers' distant chatter still going on in the clearing. As quietly as she could manage, she began picking her way through the foliage around where she guessed the perimeter of the clearing was. Unable to see the clearing, not without letting the Imperials see her, Mara halted every minute or so to stretch out and get her bearings. By using the stormtroopers' and Rosh's minds as an anchor, she was able to more or less gauge where she was in relation to the clearing.

The clearing, and the tree she was going to drop on the Imperials.

It only took her a handful of minutes to get into position, and as she crouched a meter away from the base of the tree she could see that the stormtroopers were still in place. _Probably have orders to wait for the students to show up,_ Mara thought with a sudden realization. A shuttle full of potential Jedi candidates would fetch a high ransom for the Imperial Remnant if they managed to snatch them out from Skywalker's nose. That was the only reason Mara could think of for the Imperials to risk infiltrating Yavin.

_Unless they've found another Dark Jedi,_ Mara thought with a shudder. C'baoth had been bad enough, but Mara couldn't imagine how much worse he would have been with a dozen Force sensitives to corrupt and mold into his image like he'd tried to do with Skywalker and his sister…and with her.

_All the more reason to take out this group before the others arrive._ She reached a hand to the comlink on her belt and tapped the transmit button twice in rapid succession. Gripping her lightsaber with both hands, she waited.

A crimson blaster bolt slammed into one of the stormtrooper's breastplates from the direction of the boulder. Before the Imperial's body had hit the ground, the other five were whirling in the direction of the shot, their blaster rifles up and tracking. Another bolt emerged from Rosh's location, and the stormtroopers began to return fire. A storm of blaster bolts sparked against the rock and slagged dozens of small circles across its surface–

–and with a long step forward, Mara ignited her lightsaber and slashed at the base of the tree.

The blade didn't cut all the way through on the first swing, but it _did_ attract the stormtroopers' attention. As three of them continued to pin down Rosh with suppressive fire, two of them shifted their aim to confront this new threat on their flank. Gritting her teeth, Mara reached out with the Force and tugged on their rifle barrels as she cut, trying to buy a few extra heartbeats. The troopers struggled briefly with their weapons, trying to correct their aim before giving up and reaching for their sidearms instead. The tip of her blade emerged from the other side of the tree; with a surge of adrenaline she yanked it free and dove out of the way…

…just as the multi-ton trunk collapsed where she had just been, flattening four of the stormtroopers.

The final trooper was knocked off his feet as an outrigger branch smacked across his shoulders and knocked his blaster out of his hands. Mara rolled to her feet, her blazing lightsaber still in her hands as she charged the man. He scrambled for his rifle, less than a meter from his fingertips, but Mara was faster. A quick slash across the chest, and it was over.

For a moment she just stood there, her saber humming in her hand as she eyed the six white-armored bodies. Bodies of men she had once commanded at the Emperor's side…

Mara gritted her teeth and shoved the thought away. _I've already dealt with those demons,_ she told herself angrily. Thumbing off her lightsaber, she knelt by the stormtrooper at her feet and relieved him of his blaster rifle, feeling more comfortable with the weapon than she did with a lightsaber. "Rosh?" she called out. "All clear."

He poked his head out from behind the rock, his eyes widening in shock at the carnage that now filled the clearing. "Emperor's black bones," Rosh murmured, Mara's blaster hanging limply from one hand as he stepped into the open. Mara suppressed the urge to snap at him in response to his quip about the Emperor. _Easy, now._

"Where did you learn to handle a lightsaber like that?" Rosh asked. His fear seemed to have been forgotten for the moment, replaced by the same curious innocence he had displayed since she had met him.

Mara didn't answer for a moment. "Let's just say this isn't the first time I've been to Yavin." Her previous attempts at training were not memories she were overly fond of, and the less she said for now the better. "We'd better get moving. The temple's just a few minutes–" Mara broke off as her danger sense flared suddenly. Dropping her appropriated blaster and igniting her lightsaber, she spun towards the treeline and brought the blade up in an attempt to ward off an incoming attack…but rather than a ruby-red blaster bolt, the blue rings of a stun blast enveloped her, sending a jolt of paralyzing energy into every nerve in her body.

Her lightsaber shorted out, and as she collapsed to her knees she heard Rosh cry out in shock and pain as another stun bolt hit him as well

Before her eyesight failed and she fell forward to the ground, she saw three pairs of white armored boots emerge into the clearing, stepping carefully over the bodies of the Imperials. "Contact Lieutenant Sturm. Tell him we've got two prisoners for interrogation…" The mechanically-filtered voice faded to nothing, and Mara's tenuous grip on consciousness was broken.

* * *

A shadow moved within the Jedi Academy.

Alora raced through the halls of the Great Temple with Force-enhanced speed, appearing only as a blur to the naked eye. A New Republic technician glanced up as the Lethan Twi'lek passed him, but with nothing but a slight gust of wind to mark her passage he dismissed it as an errant breeze from the ventilators. Despite her red skin and blue-green jumpsuit, she was all but invisible to those who were blind to the Force.

In other words, everyone remaining in the Academy.

Her master's plan was cunning, she had to admit as she neared her objective. By bringing down the Jedi shuttle mostly intact, rather than destroying it, she ensured that Skywalker would empty his Academy in order to gather enough Jedi to mount a search and rescue mission. Alora particularly enjoyed the thought of the Jedi potentials being rounded up by armed soldiers as they neared their rendezvous, to be taken off-planet once her master's _true_ work here was done.

Alora paused outside of Skywalker's quarters, her senses alert for any signs of nearby life. When she didn't detect anyone within twenty meters, she knew it was safe to proceed. She hurried inside to Skywalker's computer terminal, pulling out her datapad and inserting the wire-jack into the proper port. The slicer subroutine programmed into the device began rapidly ripping and downloading files from the terminal's memory, using the parameters Alora had programmed into it to search for what she wanted. Training methods, lightsaber schematics, and lesson plans were all scanned, considered, and passed over as the device methodically peeled away the Jedi Master's digital secrets.

Two minutes later, it found what she was after. Within seconds the proper files had been downloaded to the datapad, and without bothering to cover her tracks Alora removed the jack from its slot. Tucking the 'pad into one of her jumpsuit pockets, she raced out of the room, taking care to maintain the mental shield over her presence as excitement bubbled inside her. Her master would reward her well for this, she knew. More importantly, she now held the key to the fruition of their plans…and the seeds of the Jedi Order's destruction.

* * *

As the effects of the stun bolt wore off, Mara groggily awoke.

_I have to stop making a habit of this,_ she thought wryly. Unlike her previous bout of unconsciousness, she was lying on her side with her wrists bound painfully behind her back. As her awareness returned, she was able to make out the faint sounds of a stormtrooper's mechanical voice.

"…found them at Squad Three's last known position. All members of the team were dead; four were crushed by an old tree, one took a blaster bolt through the chest, and the last was killed with a lightsaber."

Another voice spoke, this one devoid of the first's droid-like tint and filled with a haughty arrogance. "Who is guarding the emergence point?"

"No one at the moment, sir. We left a sensor near the clearing, so we'll know when the targets arrive. We were about to return to our patrol after we dropped off the–"

"Idiot!" the other interrupted. "Without a full guard waiting for the Jedi, they'll slip through the net. Call off all patrols and get more men to Squad Three's assigned location."

"Sir, if I redirect my men now I'll have to do it by comlink. They're too dispersed. The Rebels will be able to intercept it."

Mara cautiously cracked one eye open to get a glance at her surroundings as the argument continued. She needn't have worried about attracting attention with her awakening; she was alone in the corner of a small tent. Judging from the design and the all-too-familiar symbol on the door flap, it belonged to the stormtroopers who had stunned her and Rosh Imperial. Aside from a chair on the opposite side of the enclosure, the tent was empty.

Mara levered herself into a sitting position, working through possible escape plans. There had to be more Imperials on the moon than the two or three squads she had expected, the dialogue outside was evidence enough of that. From what she could tell, she was at some sort of base camp in the jungle, likely near the temple where Skywalker was planning on picking up the students. Rosh had to be somewhere nearby; standard Imperial interrogation procedure was to keep prisoners separate but close by, in the event that one was needed to 'convince' the other to talk.

Mara tried not to think about the number of times she'd operated under that very same doctrine as the Emperor's Hand, and instead stretched out through the Force. She could feel Rosh nearby, afraid but unharmed–mostly–and she sighed softly in relief. There was something else, however…another Force presence that she could feel close by, but not recognize. At first she thought it was one of the other students, captured along with herself and Rosh, but as she examined its presence a cold knot began to form in her gut. It wasn't a Jedi; she could feel hatred and anger and a dozen other dark emotions, all swirling underneath a hastily-erected shield of mental will. It almost felt like…

Mara suppressed a gasp as the memory came back to her. The last time she'd sensed a presence like that had under Mount Tantiss on Wayland.

In the throne room of the mad Jedi clone, Joruus C'baoth.

Quickly she withdrew her senses, breaking contact as quietly as she could and doing her best to clamp down on her own presence. The last thing she wanted was to be noticed by a Dark Jedi…but her abilities were still too raw, despite her past training. She felt the presence stir, its attention piqued by her sudden activity, and she heard the crunch of boots moving towards her.

The debate outside of her tent was still in full swing, but as the footsteps approached both participants trailed off. Mara heard the rustle of two soldiers snapping to attention.

"My lord," the second voice–Mara had tentatively identified him as an officer–said respectfully, and with a hint of fear, "we were just discussing possible–"

"Our prisoner is awake," the newcomer said. His voice was smooth and calm, but laced with dark menace. "Step aside."

The guards outside her tent shifted; bracing herself, Mara drew one leg up to plant her foot firmly on the ground, in case she needed to move…

And with a gust of invisible Force energy the tent flap fluttered open. A lone figure entered, stopping inside the entrance to the small dwelling as he noticed Mara. He was clad head to toe in some sort of brown and red tunic that covered his entire body, save for his head and fingers. A cloth was wrapped tightly around the lower half of his face and forehead, obscuring most of his face from view but leaving his dull gray eyes visible. A simple-looking lightsaber was hooked onto the blood-red sash at his waist that held his tunic closed…and if it wasn't for the malevolence seeping into the Force from his presence, Mara might have mistaken him for a Jedi.

He seemed to evaluate her for a moment before turning and exiting the tent. "Bring her," she heard him say to the guards. A moment later, two stormtroopers entered the tent and manhandled her to her feet. "Move it, Jedi," one of them ordered as they shoved her through the door flap and into their camp.

She stumbled forward, glancing around surreptitiously to get a good look at the layout of the camp. It was a small grouping of four tents of various sizes, with the largest probably belonging to the stormtrooper squads out on patrol. The center of the camp had been cleared away…probably to use as a space for interrogating prisoners. For a moment Mara was tempted to reach out and see if she could tell which tent Rosh was in, but just as she was about to draw on the Force she heard a familiar grunt of pain from a tent of similar size to the one she had awoken in. A moment later a pair of stormtroopers emerged from the same tent, Rosh's arms slung over their shoulders.

As they dragged him along Mara gave him a quick glance. He seemed to be mostly uninjured, aside from a pair of bruises forming on his brow and cheek. _Probably back-talked one of the troopers,_ Mara thought. Rosh was a confusing individual: he balked at trading fire with a squad of stormtroopers, but apparently had no qualms about talking back as a prisoner and risking punishment.

As they were led forward, an errant thought struck Mara. _Rosh isn't bound,_ she realized, risking a second look. Yes, his hands were definitely free; the position of the two stormtroopers was evidence of that. Not that she expected Rosh to spring into action at any moment, fighting hand to hand with a small garrison of stormtroopers…but it was something she might be able to use to help them escape.

The Dark Jedi halted in front of a metal table that had been set up in front of the third tent, turning to face the two of them. His eyes tightening as he searched their faces, and he nodded at their guards.

Rosh was unceremoniously dumped onto the ground, where he lay panting on his hands and knees. Mara felt a hand land on her shoulder, and with a grunt she was likewise forced down to her knees. She threw an acid glare at the stormtrooper officer, but if he noticed he ignored her defiance. "The prisoners, my lord," he said.

"Leave us, Lieutenant Sturm," the Dark Jedi ordered. He clasped his hands behind his back as the Imperials snapped to attention and saluted before strolling away. As their footsteps receded into the distance, Mara felt him reach out with the Force, probing their surface thoughts.

Rosh flinched and gritted his teeth at the unfamiliar sensation, but as Mar felt the fingers gently touching her mind she smiled grimly. Resisting mind probes was something she'd been trained to do as an Emperor's hand, something she hadn't forgotten over the long years. With a bit of an effort Mara erected a mental barrier around her thoughts, then decided to do a bit of probing of her own. "You think this silent and scary act is going to impress me?" she asked scornfully. "Please. I've been interrogated by professionals."

"Yes," her captor said, his voice as distant as his eyes, "I can see that." Abruptly he broke off contact and looked in her eyes with a newfound respect. "You will do nicely…Mara Jade."

Her breath caught for a moment, but she smothered the spike of surprise that shot through her. "Nice trick," she growled. "What, did you look up the passenger manifest on the shuttle?"

She could sense that her jabs were beginning to draw his ire…a very good sign. A fully-fledged Dark Jedi wouldn't have allowed himself to be goaded so easily, nor would he have been completely thwarted by the shield she'd thrown up. This guy had to be an apprentice of some sort…which meant that if it came to blows, Mara stood a chance.

A small chance, but a chance nonetheless.


	4. Homecoming, Part Four

**Tales from the Jedi Academy**

**Chapter Four - Homecoming Part Four**

The Dark Jedi knelt in front of Mara, his eyes searching her face. She couldn't help but notice the dead look in his eyes, how the iris and pupils lacked any clear definition. Instead they seemed to merge, their contrasting shades of grey melting together at the point of contact. It made her spine crawl, but she suppressed the shudder before it could run through her. _Can't let him think he's gotten to me,_ she thought.

Instead, she narrowed her eyes and spat in his face. The gob struck him on the cheek of his headwrap, but he made no move to wipe it away, or even any acknowledgement of what she had done. The feeling of unease Mara had felt before grew in strength, and suddenly she realized that she could feel the spider-like Force tendrils inside of her again. Not probing her mind, but there nonetheless, feeling for something else.

After a moment her captor nodded. He rose to his feet, brushing away the saliva running down his face as he moved to Rosh. "You are strong in the Force," he said absently to Mara. "A worthy recruit."

Before she could throw a sarcastic remark back at him, a cold realization formed in Mara's head. _He's evaluating us,_ she thought. _Figuring out who's worth keeping and who isn't. _She cast a quick glance at Rosh, still holding himself on all fours as the Dark Jedi squatted in front of him. Now that she was aware of it, she could sense the darksider reaching towards Rosh through the Force, trying to determine the extent of his ability to use the Force–

Abruptly he staggered back on his heels, reaching a hand behind him to steady himself. "By the stars," he breathed, his dull voice taking on a slightly awe-filled tone as he stood again. "Such potential…my master will be pleased with me for such a find."

"What, so you're just a lackey?" Mara quipped. _Got to keep him off balance._

Her danger sense flared just before the darksider backhanded her, snapping her head to the left. Gritting her teeth at the burning sensation along the right side of her face, Mara turned her head back to him. "I am a Disciple of Ragnos," he replied, the anger in his words evident. "The Force is mine to command. You will be silent, or you will suffer."

He turned moved around the side of the table, throwing open the flap of the tent as he entered. Under normal circumstances–if her current situation could be considered _normal_–Mara would have thrown one final barb at him just for spite. However her gaze was now on the table by the entrance to the Dark Jedi's tent, not five meters away. Her survival kit was resting on one end, and all of its contents had been scattered across its surface.

Including her lightsaber and BlasTech.

Carefully, surreptitiously, Mara glanced around the camp. The small handful of stormtroopers guarding the tents weren't paying them much attention, and she couldn't see the officer anywhere nearby. There was no telling when the Dark Jedi would emerge from the tent, and this was the best chance they would have to escape. All she needed was some sort of diversion…but with her hands bound behind her it wasn't likely she'd be able to reach her lightsaber before the troopers noticed and shot her.

As she searched for inspiration, Skywalker's voice echoed through her thoughts. _A shuttle is already en route. It should get to the temple right after you do._

_The search party!_

As the makings of a plan formed in her head, Mara quickly thought back to her Emperor's Hand training. _Stun bolts from an E-11 blaster rifle last fifteen to twenty minutes. That means we've been here for half an hour, tops…and if we're close enough to the Temple…yes, that should work._

It wasn't a perfect plan, but it was a plan. Glancing over her shoulder to make sure the stormtroopers weren't watching, Mara shifted towards Rosh a few centimeters before leaning in his direction. "Rosh," she whispered. "Rosh!"

* * *

Exiting the Temple was a simple matter with the Jedi gone; Alora saw no one on her way into the jungles of Yavin IV, and she slowed to a halt a few dozen meters within the treeline. Her master's ship would be waiting nearby; all she had to do now was rendezvous with it and hand over the data she had retrieved from Skywalker's records. They would collect Lieutenant Sturm and his men, along with any prisoners they had managed to ensnare, and the strike team would be in hyperspace within an hour.

Exactly as planned.

Alora unclipped her lightsaber from her belt, her thumb resting on the activation stub as she set off towards the landing sight. _Always stay alert,_ she reminded herself. _Complacency is death._ Whether it was in one of the most dangerous environments in the galaxy or in the Disciples' most secure facility, these words were the reason she was her master's lieutenant. _I am better,_ Alora thought, _because I _choose_ to be._

* * *

By the time the darksider emerged from the tent again, they were ready.

Rosh was lying on his side in the dirt as he strode forward, stopping before them and glancing around the camp. Mara was still kneeling where she had been the whole time, and her knees were beginning to ache as she watched the Dark Jedi cast his gaze around. She could feel a hint of his former frustration at her defiance and knew that it wouldn't take much goading to set him off again. _Perfect._

The disciple–Mara found herself wondering in bemusement what kind of title that was for a dark side adept–finally seemed to make his decision as he gestured at two the stormtroopers on guard a few meters away. "Take the boy," he commanded. "Prepare him for transport, then return for the woman."

As the white-armored troopers grabbed Rosh beneath the arms and lifted him bodily to his feet, Mara saw him look slightly in her direction. She gave him a half-wink of encouragement, and he nodded imperceptibly in response.

As the pair marched Rosh away to the barracks tent, the disciple stroked his chin thoughtfully. Mara snorted softly in derision. _All he's missing is a moustache…_

"Your friend will be a fine prize for my Master," the disciple said out loud, his dead eyes still following the trooper as they shoved Rosh into their tent. "Even more so than the capture of the infamous Emperor's Hand."

Mara rolled her eyes and shifted her gaze to the treeline inconspicuously. _Any moment now…_ "You're charging credits you haven't earned yet, kid. Save it for someone who cares."

Her response was another smack across the face. As the disciple clenched his hand to ward off the ache, Mara gritted her teeth and slowly turned her head back to him.

"I can see my Master will have her hands full with you," her captor ground out. "Defiance towards one's superiors is strictly and harshly punished within the Disciples of Ragnos."

Mara didn't answer as she glared at him murderously, and he chuckled softly behind his wrap. "You should thank me," he continued. "Today is the beginning of a new chapter in your life, Emperor's Hand. You may have turned your back on the Empire…but the dark side has not turned its back on you."

She knew the words were meant to plant the seeds of doubt in her–doubts about her past and her decision to leave it behind–but nonetheless Mara felt a weight forming in the pit of her stomach. The disciple had caught onto her game, and now it was his turn. _Blast._

"Right," she said sardonically, shifting her hands behind her back to put tension on the bindings. They cut into her wrists, but she ignored the pain. "Is that what you think is going to happen? Your master's going to come and pick us up, and then we're all going to go fly away to your secret base for some 'reeducation'?"

"Mock me all you wish," the Dark Jedi shot back, his tone once more cold and under control, "but when our Master returns to claim her new pupils you shall pay dearly for your insolence."

Mara smiled to herself. _Gotcha._ "Just who is this 'Master' of yours I'm supposed to bow to?" she asked, a hint of sarcasm remaining in her tone but not enough to warrant another backhand. "Who knows, maybe I've met her?"

The disciple snorted. "Perhaps. Either way, we will soon see–"

He broke off abruptly and cocked his head, as if listening. Mara strained her ears for a moment, her heart rising in her chest. _Finally…_ For several seconds she heard nothing.

Then she felt them.

Skywalker's presence washed over her like a blanket, blocking out the soft buzz of the disciple's aura just as the shuttle roared over the clearing barely twenty meters overhead. The downblast from its repulsors whipped the tents around and kicked up a small cloud of dust around the camp. The disciple, having also felt Skywalker and the other Jedi approaching, raised his hands to cover his eyes from the miniature storm.

As he did, Mara moved.

Throwing herself forward, she rolled over her shoulder and reached out through the Force. Her control was still shaky, but with her mind clear of the disciples' invasive presence she was able to call her lightsaber to her from the table, activating it in mid-flight. With a comforting _snap-hiss_ the azure blade sprang to life, and she shifted to allow the tip of stab through the binders on her wrists. Mindful of the blade Mara continued her roll, her saber landing in one hand as she rose and spun simultaneously–

–only to have her lightsaber met by a bar of ruby-red plasma that had sprung from the disciples' hand. For a moment they stood there, silent and immobile as they strained against each other's guards. Finally Mara pushed away and took a step back as her opponent recovered.

Then the disciple laughed.

"You have some skill," he said in amused anticipation as they began to circle each other. "Good. I've grown restless babysitting these buffoons…I crave a challenge!"

He lunged at her, his saber coming down in an overhand strike. Mara batted the blow to the side and swung her own blade back up to retaliate, but the disciple recovered and blocked her strike. They continued to circle, their lightsabers less than a meter away from each other.

Mara went on the offensive, feinting an attack to the left as she shifted her weight in the other direction and brought her sword down low to sweep towards the Dark Jedi's legs. He leapt above the slash, turning the dodge into a backflip that connected her chin with his boot. Mara staggered back a step as he landed before halting, wiping the sleeve of her jacket across her mouth. Her earlier confidence in the plan was fading as she realized that she'd underestimated the disciple. _This isn't working…_

"Tch," her opponent clicked as he straightened, "somehow I'm…_disappointed_."

Their blades connected again, and Mara realized that she might have bitten off more than she could chew.

* * *

Rosh's escorts shoved him to the ground as they entered the tent.

He grunted in pain as he landed, the injuries he'd sustained from his limited beating flaring up for a moment.

As he lay there, panting in what was only half-faked pain and fear, he heard one of the stormtroopers chuckle within his helmet. "Skywalker's standards must be slipping," he quipped. "And here I was worried we'd actually have a fight on our hands…"

"It's just a bunch of kids with delusions of grandeur," his companion replied, moving by Rosh's prone form to the equipment locker at the base of one of the numerous cots inside the tent. "Did you look at the passenger manifest they gave us? None of these brats are any older than my brother."

"You're kidding."

"Well, except for that Jade woman, but I don't think she counts. She's…different."

Rosh remained quiet through the exchange, but when the stormtrooper returned from the footlocker with a pair of bindings he clenched his teeth and let out a fairly convincing moan.

The first one, having set his rifle by one of the tent's support posts as he leaned against it, straightened at the noise. "What was that?"

Rosh whimpered in pain, and the second stormie cocked his helmet. "I think it's him."

The first trooper planted a boot on Rosh's side and pushed him onto his back. "Shut up, boy, before I really give you something to whimper about."

"My lungs…" Rosh gasped, doing his best approximation of someone who was undergoing the early stages of asphyxiation. He squeezed his eyes shut and brought a hand up to clench at his throat, as if there were an invisible vise there. "Can't…"

"What the kark?" He heard a soft _clink_ as the trooper with the binders dropped them, followed by a ripping noise as his tunic was torn open. Gloved fingers probed his chest and abdomen. "There's not even a bruise here…"

"Then what's happening to him?"

"I don't know!"

"Please," Rosh squeezed out, "Help me…" _Come on, Master Skywalker, hurry up already…_

"Get the medkit!"

_Wait, what?_

With his eyes still closed, Rosh heard one of the stormies rummage around in the footlocker frantically. Plasteel contents rattled against each other before he returned to kneel on the other side of Rosh from the first trooper. _Oh, poodoo._ Unable to maintain the façade any longer, Rosh opened his eyes and sucked in a lungful of oxygen.

And with a roar that shook the tent, the Academy shuttle soared over the camp.

"_What the hell was that?"_ one of the stormtroopers yelled over the thrum of repulsorlifts. Both of them jumped to their feet, their would-be patient forgotten as they scrambled for their blaster rifles. The sudden onslaught of sound vanished just as quickly as it had begun, and without hesitation the troopers rushed towards the tent flap with their weapons at the ready.

Leaving Rosh alone in the middle of the tent.

Quietly, Rosh snaked his behind his back and clenched it around the grip of Mara's BlasTech, tucked beneath the folds of his tunic pants. He took a deep breath as he drew the gun, steadying his shaking hands as he flipped the safety from stun to kill. He knew it was dangerous to be frightened at a time like this. Mara and the other apprentices were depending on him, and if he failed they'd either be captured or killed. _Steady, Penin._

_A Jedi knows no fear._

Rosh raised the BlasTech and fired.

* * *

Mara ducked beneath the disciple's wild swing, the blade passing centimeters from her ear as she directed a riposte at his legs. Grunting, her opponent redirected the strike and nudged her off balance. His blade barely kissed her stomach, slicing through her jacket and shirt to scorch the skin underneath.

She gritted in pain…and frustration. _Nine Hells, why won't you just _die?

It was barely a minute into the fight, but both were already showing signs of exhaustion. Mara had nearly forgotten how strenuous her sparring with Corran and the others had been during her first stay at the Academy; since then her skills had only atrophied.

Luckily, it was apparent that the disciple of Ragnos wasn't very skilled with a lightsaber. For all his posturing and bluster, he was having trouble blocking some of her quicker strikes, treating the blade like a club instead of a weightless beam of light. Three times she'd seen openings in his defense, only to curse as her aching muscles prevented her from moving fast enough to take advantage.

She dodged to the left as he brought his saber down like an axe, chopping the empty air where she'd been as she swung her own blade at his neck. In response he spun to the right and pulled his own weapon back in time to lock against hers, resulting in a small spray of sparks and the crackle of ozone.

"Surrender," the disciple grunted, slowly pushing her blade away from his face, "and you may yet live…to serve my Master…"

With a shout he lashed out with the Force, knocking her back a few meters to land on her back. Mara rolled, sheathing her lightsaber to avoid impaling herself on it as the Dark Jedi charged with his saber held low. Again their blades met, and again Mara could feel her arms tiring as his saber forced hers down, centimeter by centimeter, until it was a hand's width from her neck.

"_Surrender!"_ the disciple bellowed, and Mara could see that his eyes were no longer dull grey; they were bloodshot with golden irises, giving him the appearance of a madman. With less than ten centimeters between their faces, Mara could feel the anger and swirling emotions radiating from him like heat. It was raw power, power that she couldn't yet match. _Not through brute force, anyway,_ she thought as her lungs burned.

Her thoughts were interrupted by a pair of blaster shots in quick succession. Both Mara and the disciple glanced back towards the stormtrooper's tent to see the guards outside collapse from a smoking hole in each of their backs…followed soon after by the emergence of Rosh Penin, BlasTech clutched in his hands as he took aim at Mara's attacker.

"No!" her opponent shouted, breaking the saber lock with a shove before whirling towards this new threat. Rosh's first bolt was redirected into the sky, and his second blew into the dirt between the two of them. The third grazed his shoulder, spinning him half around as he cried out in pain.

Confident that Rosh was out of the picture, the disciple spun back to Mara–

–and gasped through his face wrap as she plunged her azure saber into his stomach.

For a long moment the two were still, locked into place by Mara's weapon. The lightsaber all but purred as the Dark Jedi's eyes widened in shock centimeters from her face. She could see the raging yellow and red inferno fading as his life force began to ebb. "Im…possible," he rasped. "You…you…"

Then his eyes turned grey and dull once more, and a dry rattle emerged from his mouth.

Mara sheathed her saber as the disciple of Ragnos fell flat on his back, vaguely realizing that she was panting. The burn on her stomach chose this moment to make itself known, and she clenched her teeth as fresh pain shot through her. _You're alive,_ she told herself forcefully, holding a hand over her wound, _so walk it off._

"Mara…"

Her head whipped towards the sound of the voice, and she saw Rosh struggling to his feet. Smoke curled from beneath his fingertips as he held a hand over the blaster graze on his shoulder, but somehow he managed to take a step in her direction. "Heh…I guess we…showed them…"

Ignoring her own pain, Mara rushed to the younger boy's side and slung his uninjured arm over her shoulder. "You all right?" she asked, almost wincing at the worry in her tone.

Rosh nodded. "Yeah…yeah, I think I'll be okay. Just…hurts, is all." He spared a glance at the crease, grimacing. "Probably looks worse…than it feels," he said shakily, attempting to come off as reassuring.

"Can you make it to the temple?" Mara asked as she glanced at the treeline in the direction Skywalker's shuttle had flown. It was a good bet they hadn't landed yet; chances were Uliar's group was still trying to find a way around the wall Mara and Rosh had run into, and if so the shuttle would still be circling to try and pick them up. _I should reach the temple just before they do._

Rosh grunted as Mara tried to lead him forward. "Yeah…but I'll only…slow you down." He tried to grin, but it was weak and soon swallowed by another grimace of pain. "Go on…I'll be fine here…Just send someone to come get me...and we'll call it even for today."

It took Mara a moment to realize he was making a joke. She chuckled under her breath as she helped him hobble back to the stormtrooper's tent, allowing him to lie down on the cot nearest the entrance. Before she turned to go, she plucked the blaster rifle from one of the dead troopers' hands and offered it to Rosh. "Here," she said. "Just in case the stormies come back before we do."

She and Rosh both knew that if the Imperials returned to investigate the fate of their comrades, one rifle wouldn't be enough to hold them off. Still, he accepted the blaster and propped it against his thigh as he laid his head back on the cot's sparse pillow. "Don't take too long…or I might take a nap…"

When there was no sarcastic reply, Rosh looked up. Mara was already gone.

* * *

With a sense of urgency that surprised even her, Mara rifled through the contents of her overturned survival kit. Her comlink she clipped to her belt, along with the holster for her BlasTech and a spare set of power packs. Sliding the blaster into place on her hip, she opted to keep her lightsaber out just in case she ran into something nasty on the way to the temple. _It worked wonders on those howlers,_ she noted.

Once she was satisfied she had everything she would need, Mara set off towards the temple at a run. It couldn't have been more than half a kilometer away, she knew, and despite her fatigue from the battle with the Dark Jedi she knew she wouldn't have any problems covering that amount of ground in a short period of time.

Strangely, as she ran she found her thoughts returning to her last visit to the Academy. She'd only been there a few weeks before something had blown up in her face, and now here she was yet again, dodging stormtroopers in the jungle and dueling dark force users with megalomania issues.

Star's end, it wasn't just her attempts at joining the Academy. Ever since she'd met Skywalker, her life had been tied into a knot and turned upside down. _Some things never change,_ she thought as she clambered over a fallen tree, scattering the scavengers swarming around the insect colony beneath it. _First Myrkr, then Wayland…now Yavin._

_What is it with Skywalker and jungles, anyway?_

As she'd hoped, Mara was able to reach the rendezvous point in minutes. Her lightsaber skills might have atrophied, but physical training was something she had always held as a priority. _Especially in a job where getting packed in five minutes can mean life or death,_ she thought as she halted by a tree on the bank of a small lake. She could see the temple Skywalker had told her about a dozen meters ahead, jutting out of the shallow body of water. It was similar in shape and size to some of the smaller Massassi structure that dotted the jungle moon, but those were stone ziggurats, formed from hundreds of massive stone blocks.

The temple resting on the lake in front of her was a black pyramid, each corner capped by a jagged spire that curved towards the tip of the structure. The statue of a cloaked figure lay in ruin at the staircase leading to its entrance, its outstretched arms now reaching towards the sky rather than out in front of it.

A chill ran up Mara's back as she gazed on the temple. It reminded her of Exar Kun's sanctuary, the place where he had launched his unsuccessful attempt to subvert Kyp Durron and kill Skywalker when the farmboy had started training his first batch of students years ago. She brushed the memory of that dark place away; Kun was gone for good, and Corran had blasted his temple into slag with his starfighter afterwards for good measure.

Still, as she approached she could feel some residual energy emanating from the temple. An echo of the same hatred and malevolence that had radiated from the disciple she'd killed…

The same malevolence that had radiated from C'Baoth.

The knee-deep water was warm, thankfully, and she barely noticed it seeping through her boots as she waded towards the lip of the temple landing. She slowed once she reached the edge, her ears picking up something that her subconscious was convinced didn't belong in the background noise of the jungle.

Then a small part of her thought _What background noise?_

Mara realized that the clearing was completely. There was no chirping of avians, no howlers screeching, no cacophony of clicks from armies of forager insects. Aside from a sudden wind that was softly whistling around the temple's outcroppings and the trickle of a nearby stream feeding the moat, Mara might have been wearing earplugs.

But there was that sound…

She clambered up onto the landing quickly but quietly; her soaked boots squished slightly as she took a step, so she removed them. The black stone the temple had been crafted out of felt like ice against her bare feet, and within moments all heat had been absorbed from them. She ignored the cold as she slid along the edge of the temple's outer wall, slowly moving her head out to peek around the corner…

_What in space?_

There were three figures standing in front of the entrance to the temple. Two of them were tall, easily two meters, and wore bulky protective gear that included a dome-shaped helmet and a crimson sash much like the one the disciple has been wearing. The third, however, was partially obscured by one of her companions; all Mara could see of her was an outstretched arm covered in elaborate tattoos…and in her hand, an ornate and cruel-looking scepter.

Mara watched for a moment before realizing that the scepter had to be the source of the faint noise she had detected. She still couldn't make it out very well. It was almost like a soft crackling noise at first, but as she listened it fell to more of a droning burble.

Mara stifled a gasp. _Chanting._ Those were _voices_ coming from the scepter, although she couldn't make out what they were saying. Still, she would have bet Skyw–_her_ lightsaber on it; she'd had a lot of practice hiding in plain sight, both as an Emperor's Hand and during her tenure as a smuggler with Karrde, and she knew the drone of a crowd when she heard it. _What the kriff is that thing?_

She made a snap decision to try to get a closer look, so she gingerly shifted her footing and prepared to ease around the corner–

Her wet foot slipped on the glossy black stone, and she bit back a curse as her fingers failed to find purchase on the temple's smooth surface. She splashed down into the water rear-first, catching herself on the palms of her hands.

The three figures turned in her direction at the sound, barely two dozen meters away. Mara scrambled to her feet as she saw the leader step out in front of the other two. She got a glimpse of a face partially concealed by even more tattoos, a black cylinder clipped to her belt…

As she reached for her lightsaber, the leader pointed the head of the scepter at her and spoke a single word.

"_Krish ke Jidai."_

And with a blinding flash of light and a bone-shaking thunderclap, Mara felt a brief moment of weightlessness before consciousness fled her. The last thing she saw before darkness obscured her thoughts and vision was the surface of the moat, much further away than it had been moments ago, rushing up to meet her.


	5. Homecoming, Part Five

**Tales from the Jedi Academy**

**Chapter Five - Homecoming Part Five**

When Mara awoke, she was aware of three things: the sound of someone coughing violently, she felt like she'd been frozen solid, and it felt like there was a raging ronto trying to break out of her skull.

Then she realized _she_ was the one coughing.

"Sit her upright," a familiar voice–not Skywalker's–said in a tone that made it obvious they were used to having orders obeyed. "Let her get it all out."

"Yes, Master Katarn." Mara felt herself being pulled across a cold, hard surface–the temple landing?–and propped up against an equally cold and hard wall. The shift allowed her to expel most of the water from her throat, and she sucked in a greedy breath of fresh air. As her lungs were wracked with another bout of coughing, she blinked her eyes open.

Squatting in front of her was a bearded man in a rustic tunic and leather jacket. His brow was furrowed in concern, but his deceptively-dull brown eyes lit up as hers focused on him. A smile appeared beneath the beard.

"Well now," Kyle Katarn said, "this is a bit of a surprise."

'_Master' Katarn?_ Despite the splitting headache and lungful of spring water, Mara managed a small smile in return. "You're telling me. They're letting nerf herders teach Jedi around here?"

"Yeah, standards have slipped a bit since you've been gone," Kyle replied without a hint of offense.

Mara began shivering–or rather, realized that she'd been shivering since she'd awoken–and rubbed her arms to coax a bit of warmth back into them via friction. Katarn shrugged off his jacket and draped it around her.

"Is every day here like this?" she asked.

Kyle snorted. "No, you just happened to come on a slow week." He sobered somewhat as he stood, and Mara realized they weren't alone. One of the other Jedi potentials from the ship, a male Zabrak, had a small medkit open beside her. When he reached for her arm with a syringe, she flinched back and shot him a look that would have melted durasteel.

Surprisingly, he didn't seem to mind. Instead he smiled reassuringly. "It's symoxin; painkiller."

Slightly abashed, Mara allowed him to bare her upper arm and jab the needle into her muscle. Moments after he'd depressed the plunger, the pain in her head subsided significantly.

"I'm going to need a lot more of that if this becomes a habit," she joked.

The Zabrak looked at her quizzically.

"Getting knocked out, I mean."

"Oh." In his other hand he had a small medical scanner. He glanced at the screen as he waved the sensor along her flank. "No serious injuries or signs of hypothermia…a lot of bruises, some minor lacerations from shrapnel, and a couple of hairline fractures in your ribs but considering the size that blast must've been I'd say you're lucky to be this intact."

Mara frowned. "What blast?"

The Zabrak jerked his head to her left, in the direction of the temple entrance. Mara craned her neck to look–

And gaped. "I _survived_ that?"

The corner of the temple near where she'd slipped into the water looked like somebody had tried their hand at exterior redecorating via laser cannon. There was a crater in the wall almost three meters across, and the stone was still making crackling noises as it cooled.

"Looks like luck or the Force was with you," Kyle remarked. "And while we're on this subject: what the spast happened?"

Mara tore her eyes from the ruined wall of the temple, recalling what she'd been through since the crash. Kyle listened intently to her story while the Zabrak–he introduced himself as Raltharon–continued to check her injuries, giving her another injection to raise her core temperature and a few bacta patches to start mending her semi-fractured ribs.

"Did you get a good look at the woman with the scepter?" Kyle asked once she'd finished.

Mara closed her eyes, falling back on a half-remembered Jedi memory exercise Skywalker had taught her years ago. She sifted through her short-term memory, recalling the three figures at the foot of the temple…the two armored humans, one of them partially concealing the woman with his bulk…Mara lost her footing once again and slipped into the water…the woman stepped forward slightly to bring the scepter to bear on her…

She opened her eyes again. "No," she admitted. "It's a bit of a blur, and her...bodyguards, I suppose, were blocking her. All I could make out were some of her tattoos; from what I saw of her, she was covered in them."

Kyle got a faraway look in his eyes, and he frowned slightly.

"What is it?" Mara asked as Ralth bandaged the last gash in her shoulder.

Kyle shook his head. "Nothing. Just a memory." He glanced to her side. "Well, what's the verdict, doc? She okay for a walk?"

The Zabrak blushed at the title. "Yes, so long as you take it slow. I'd recommend a few hours in a bacta tank to fully recover–"

Mara made a face.

"–but I don't think there's any real reason to keep her off her feet."

"You heard the doc," Kyle said, extending a hand.

Mara accepted the leverage and pulled herself to her feet, wincing at the myriad of aches and pains she'd acquired while asleep. "Where're Skywalker and the others?" she asked, slipping off Kyle's jacket and tossing it to him.

Kyle caught it and slipped it over his shoulders as they started walking. Raltharon packed up his medkit and followed behind. "_Master_ Skywalker is checking out the Imperial camp you and Rosh found," he said pointedly.

_Oh._ "Right," Mara said. "Sorry."

Kyle shrugged. "Don't worry, you get used to it." He grinned. "I did."

Something clicked in Mara's head. "Wait…Sithspawn, Rosh! Is he–?"

"He's fine," Kyle said reassuringly. "He's on the rescue shuttle now; Master Cilghal's on board checking on him and the other wounded students."

_Other wounded…?_ "Did Uliar's group run into one of the stormtrooper patrols?" Mara asked, almost dreading the answer.

"No, thankfully," Kyle answered. "Mostly a few broken bones and scrapes from the crash, no fatalities. Uliar's not the best outdoorsman; you and Rosh actually outpaced him even before you navigated the temple's perimeter wall. He was still circling around trying to find another entrance when we found him and the students."

A smirk grew on Mara's face. "I suppose we should be thankful of the fact that he's a worse trailblazer than he is a pilot. Speaking of which, have you looked at the crash site yet?"

Kyle nodded as they reached the edge of the moat and climbed up the sodden earth. "Luke's got a few of the Academy techs going over it now; they should have something by tonight."

Mara shot him a sidelong glance. "So you can call him Luke, but to me he's 'Master Skywalker'?"

Kyle offered her an expression of mock indignity. "Do you see a tag that says 'Master' anywhere on your jacket? No? Case closed."

"You don't have one either, braggart."

"Yeah, but it's the _principle_ of the thing."

* * *

The Imperial camp was bustling with activity when the three of them arrived. A squad of New Republic troopers was busy tearing the place apart while three stormtroopers, sans their helmets and blasters, were being held at gunpoint off to the side. The rescue shuttle rested on its landing struts behind the tent barracks with its passenger ramp extended. She could see that most of the student were already inside, with a white-robed Mon Calamari female and a pair of New Republic medics tending to the more seriously-wounded Jedi students outside on field stretchers.

In the eye of this storm stood a blonde-haired man in a black tunic, boots, and a black glove over his right hand. A lightsaber hung at his belt and a squat R2 droid sat beside him, burbling softly to itself.

"Find anything, Luke?" Kyle called out as they approached.

The Grand Master of the Academy turned with slightly raised eyebrows–Mara knew Skywalker had to have sensed them long before they had reached the camp, so this was likely mere politeness on his part–and smiled in relief. "Kyle, Mara," he said, his pale blue eyes passing over both of them in turn.

His gaze lingered on Mara for a moment. She stared back unflinchingly before Skywalker shifted his attention to Ralth. "You're one of the new students, right?" he said, his tone casual and friendly. "Raltharon?"

"Uh, yessi-yes Master Skywalker," Ralth said. "Raltharon Theroleon, but my friends just call me Ralth."

Luke smiled disarmingly and clapped his flesh and blood hand on the Zabrak's shoulder. "Now I remember you; Welcome to Yavin IV. There'll be time for proper introductions once we're back at the Academy, but for now I'm sure Master Cilghal and those medics could use your help."

"Absolutely," Ralth replied, hoisting his medkit and hurrying across the camp.

Mara was a bit surprised at Skywalker's manner; the last time she'd been here, he'd been as stiff and formal as a durasteel beam. _So the Jedi has emotions,_ she thought with a dose of sarcasm. _Looks like the farmboy's picked up a few things about teaching._

When Skywalker turned back to Kyle and Mara, however, she saw something in his eyes change. The cheerful look on his face didn't vanish, but the brightness in his eyes dimmed and even with her neglected skills she could detect a hint of something slipping through his mental barriers. _Fear. Anxiety. Fatigue. Doubt._

"Are you hurt, Mara?" Skywalker asked. _So much for casual._

She shifted her jacket enough to show the bandages she was wearing. "Nothing bad. A few new bumps and scratches to match the bumps and scratches on my pride." She nodded at the camp beyond the three of them. "Find anything yet?"

Skywalker took a deep breath, letting it out in a sigh. "Not yet," he said in disappointment. "The prisoners we were able to take didn't know much about who they were assigned to beyond their direct commanding officer, or their objective beyond capturing as many of the students as possible."

"What about the lieutenant?" Mara asked. "There was a Lieutenant Sturm ordering the stormtroopers around. He was taking orders from the dark force user Rosh and I killed."

Skywalker shook his head. "Gone. Most of the patrolling stormtroopers escaped in a shuttle that lifted off from somewhere near the temple right before we reached the camp. They were in a hurry, too; they left one of their patrols behind." He nodded at the captive stormtroopers.

Kyle looked towards the tent the disciple had been using. "I don't suppose your sparring partner said anything before you shishkabobbed him?"

Mara followed his eyes and saw that the dark force user had been lain out on the table in front of the tent. Even in death, his vacant expression still gave her chills. "No," she answered. Something occurred to her. "Wait–he called himself a 'Disciple of Ragnos' before we fought. Said he had a master, too."

Mara looked back at Kyle and Skywalker to see them exchange worried glances. "Does that mean something to you?" she asked hesitatingly.

Kyle answered. "The only Ragnos I can think of is–"

"Marka Ragnos," Skywalker interrupted in a foreboding voice.

"Since that doesn't sound like a cheap brand of ale I'm gonna assume I was wrong," Kyle said dryly. "So who or what is Marka Ragnos?"

"A Sith Lord," Luke explained. "An _ancient_ Sith Lord. Legend says that he ruled an empire from Korriban roughly five thousand years ago. At one point he even claimed the title of Dark Lord of the Sith."

Mara felt her spine stiffen. "What, like Vader?"

Luke's eyes narrowed slightly. "Yes," he murmured. "Like Vader."

"But he's dead, right?" Kyle asked. "I don't care how powerful he was; after five thousand years I'm pretty sure he'd be a pile of dust in a tomb somewhere on that rock."

"Not necessarily," Skywalker warned. "There are techniques in the Force that can provide a spirit with the means to survive after the body is destroyed. And even in death a Sith Lord of his caliber would make a powerful symbol for a new group of Dark Jedi to rally around."

"There's a cheery thought," Mara remarked sardonically. "So what are we going to do about it?"

Once again Kyle and Skywalker exchanged glances, but this time they were of mild amusement. "What?" Mara asked in irritation.

"Don't you think you're forgetting why you're here, _apprentice?_" Kyle asked while fighting a smile that threatened to bloom beneath his beard.

"Kyle's right," Skywalker said. "I appreciate your willingness to help, but I and the other Masters can deal with this. Right now the best thing for you to do would be to board the shuttle with your fellow students; it'll be ferrying them back to the Great Temple in a few minutes."

"Like hell," Mara shot back. "If you're going up against a cult of Sith-worshiping dark side users then you'll need every lightsaber you can get."

"We won't be going up against anything until we know more," Skywalker pointed out.

"Besides," Kyle interjected before Mara could argue further, "you said yourself that the fight with the disciple took a lot out of you. How much better do you think you'll do if the next one you face is even better? Or if there's more than one? For now, the best way you and the other students can help is to begin your training." He offered her a grin. "Like you said, once we know what we're dealing with we'll need every lightsaber we can get. I'd prefer it if the hands wielding those lightsabers had a bit of experience."

Mara bit back a scathing retort and ground her teeth.

_He's right,_ part of her said.

_Shut up._

_You won't do Luke or anyone else any good if you get cut in half right out of the gate._

_SHUT UP._

"Fine," Mara grumbled. She jabbed a finger at Kyle. "But when the time comes to hit these guys, training or not I'm going with you. End of story."

Skywalker chuckled at her boldness, but Kyle just shrugged. "As you wish, Master Jade."

Mara scowled and turned to head for the shuttle.

* * *

Luke watched as Mara stalked off for the rescue ship. Even without the Force it was obvious that the conversation had put her in a bad mood. "I think you might have pushed it a little too far with that last jab," he commented.

Again, Kyle shrugged. "No permanent harm done. Just a gentle prodding to put her in her place." He paused, a mildly disgusted expression crossing his face. "Space, I sounded like an Imp just then."

Luke laughed. "No, I know what you meant. The sooner Mara starts to fit in among the other students, the better her training will go…and, well, it's not like we have to worry about damaging her pride."

"She's certainly got enough of that for all three of us."

Luke's expression grew somber as he gazed around the camp. "I still can't believe this happened," he said. "More than two dozen people on that shuttle…if Mara and Rosh hadn't distracted those stormtroopers, Uliar and the students might have been caught in the Imperials' net. And if the Imperials really were operating under the orders of a new Dark Jedi…"

"Not exactly a pleasant thought, like Mara said," Kyle agreed, crossing his arms. "So what's our first step?"

Luke clasped his hands behind his back as he thought. "For now, let's see what we can find out about these 'disciples'. Mara said their leader, the tattooed woman–she was doing something at the Massassi temple not far from here, so I'd like you to go look around for anything unusual. Cilghal can take the students back to the Academy, and when I'm finished here I'll see what I can dig up on Ragnos from the archives."

Kyle shivered. "Crawling around in an ancient Sith ruin is not how I envisioned my first day with the new kids going, Luke." Despite his complaint, he turned and started back along the trail he and Mara had followed from the temple to the camp.

"Be careful, Kyle," Luke called out after him.

Kyle's only response was an absent-minded wave of his hand.

* * *

As the last of the wounded students were loaded into the rear compartment of the shuttle, the pilot retracted the cargo ramp and fired the repulsorlifts. A dust cloud billowed out from beneath the ship and nearby plants danced from the downblast. The shuttle rose above the level of the treetops before the thrusters fired and sent the ship and its passengers on their way to the Great Temple.

Inside, Mara cast her eyes about in search of a particular casualty. The shuttle was crammed with Jedi students, injured and hale, as well as the medics and some of the troopers that had accompanied the rescue ship. She gently maneuvered her way through the crowd, mindful of the students lying on stretchers and the ones with bacta casts; more jostling would hardly help them. Finally, she found Rosh sitting upright near the back of the shuttle with his shoulder swathed in bacta bandages as Cilghal worried over him with even more.

"Mara!" he called out as she approached, waving his good arm to get her attention. She responded with a wave of her own, careful not to show the relief she felt at seeing him. In just a few short hours Rosh had become the closest thing she had to a friend among the other students…but that didn't mean she had to broadcast it to the entire shuttle.

When she drew closer, Rosh's smile inverted. "Whoa," he said apprehensively, "what happened to you? You look like a gundark's chewtoy."

She shot him a look. "Thanks."

His face turned red as he realized what she meant. "I, uh, I didn't mean–"

"Ease up, laserbrain, it's a joke."

Cilghal turned to regard Mara with one of her eyes as she applied the past patch to Rosh's stomach. "Hello, Mara."

Mara simply nodded in return. "Cilg-_Master_ Cilghal."

The Mon Calamari smiled. "I see you've been speaking with Master Katarn."

"It figures he would be the first one I run into on this planet."

Rosh was looking between the two of them with an expression of absolute bewilderment. "How many Jedi do you _know_ around here?" he asked incredulously.

"Most of them," Cilghal said before Mara could silently urge her to be quiet. _Blast it._ The Mon Calamari began packing up her medkit. "You'll heal within a few days," she assured Rosh. "If we didn't have any other more seriously injured students I'd recommend a few hours in a bacta tank, but it looks like there'll be a line for the next three days or so."

"No worries," Rosh said.

"Wonderful," Mara sighed at the same time. Bacta's sour aftertaste aside, walking around with a cruiser's worth of aches and bruises for the first few days of her Jedi training was not a fun idea.

Cilghal eyed both of them for a moment before chuckling and moving to another student on a stretcher.

"All right, spill," Rosh said flatly as Mara collapsed into one of the few vacant acceleration couches near her friend.

She looked at him in confusion. "What?"

"How do you know so many Jedi?"

"Ah." She shifted uncomfortably, unsure of whether or not she really wanted to tell him. As she had when they first arrived, she made a snap decision. "Remember how I told you this wasn't my first time to Yavin?"

Rosh nodded. "Oh." Then his eyes widened slightly as he realized what she meant. "_Oh._"

"Yeah."

They sat in silence as the shuttle continued to roar over the treetops; Rosh unwilling to press the matter further, Mara unwilling to volunteer any more information. For a few minutes the only sound was the dull thrum of the craft's repulsors and the low din of anxious conversation amongst the students.

After what seemed like an eternity of awkward silence, Rosh straightened at his spot by a viewport. "Look!"

Several of the other students moved to their own ports as Mara shifted to look over Rosh's shoulder. The pilot banked to starboard, giving the new arrivals a long look at the Great Temple of Yavin IV.

Like the rest of the Massassi structures on the jungle moon, the Temple was constructed entirely of solid blocks of stone. However, that was where the similarity ended. Whereas most of the other surrounding temples were angular pyramids, the Temple was a circular ziggurat with sloping ridges spaced around the exterior at even intervals. Mara estimated it to be between two or three times larger than any other structure on the moon.

There were more modern additions, of course. One of the Temple's lower walls had been carved out and replaced with heavy blast doors by the Rebel Alliance almost a decade and a half ago when they had first used Yavin as their hidden base. Sentry posts protruded from the canopy in the surrounding jungle, and the peak of the Temple had been fitted with beacons and markings to convert it into a starfighter-sized landing pad.

"A few years ago, I never would've dreamed I'd be here," Rosh said almost reverently as the shuttle maneuvered through the open blast doors and into the cavernous hangar bay.

Mara shifted uncomfortably in her seat and tried to ignore the irony in that statement. _A few years ago I never thought I'd be _back _here._

The pilot gently eased the rescue shuttle past rows of X-, A-, and E-wing starfighters before setting it down on its skids near the turbolifts. Mara could already see a handful of New Republic medics ready to receive the injured students and help them to the medical bay. _I wonder how many non-Jedi Skywalker's gotten the New Republic to station here since last time,_ she thought idly before the shuttle powered down and the hatch opened.

Standing at the foot of the ramp when it extended was a gold-plated protocol droid.

"Greetings!" it said in a prissy Coruscanti voice. "I am See-Threepio, human-cyborg relations, and it is my pleasure to welcome you all to the Jedi Praxeum!"

Mara groaned to herself. _As if this day could get any better._

* * *

In orbit, a tri-winged _Lambda_-class shuttle emerged from Yavin IV's atmosphere and accelerated out of the gas giant's gravity well. Within moments, the shuttle's engines flared and the craft made the jump to hyperspace.

Within the shuttle's passenger bay, Alora knelt before her master.

Unlike Alora, her master was human. Elaborate tattoos of Sith symbols, characters, and depictions of ancient Sith legends covered her arms, legs, torso, and even her face. Her short black hair was tied into a knot on top of her head with a trio of needles, and she was clothed in a sparse outfit that Alora personally felt was more fitting a slave girl than a Dark Jedi.

But she did not dare voice that thought out loud, or even entertain it beyond a moment's fancy.

"Did you recover Skywalker's records?" her master asked without turning to face Alora. She was seated in the center of the compartment, her legs crossed in a simple meditative stance. Her lightsaber and the Scepter floated before her, suspended with the Force.

"Easily," Alora said with pride. "There were less than half a dozen Jedi remaining in the Academy after the shuttle crashed. None of them detected me."

"_Excellent._" Her master's voice carried a hint of gratitude, but was tinged with…irritation?

"Something troubles you, Master?" Alora asked, taking a calculated risk.

Her master stirred. "Korlo and Lieutenant Sturm failed me," she hissed. "While you were retrieving the data we require, they were ordered to gather up the Jedi students and deliver them to the shuttle. They were to have been among our first recruits; already strong in the Force, yet untainted by the Jedi teachings. They would have made almost as much of a prize as Skywalker's journal!"

Alora felt the air around her ripple with her master's anger and knew she should tread carefully. "They would have been quite useful," she said reassuringly, "but with the Scepter, will we not have all the recruits as we need soon?"

Her master's temper began to fall. "Yes…yes, you are correct. Sturm's failure was a minor setback." She took a deep breath, not dismissing her anger, but reining it in and controlling it. "Once we have reached our destination, you will contact our ally on Bastion and inform him that the first phase of our plan is ready to be initiated. We shall need many more soldiers."

Alora bowed her head. "It shall be done, Master."

* * *

**Author's Note:** And so that brings us to the end of Tales from the Jedi Academy: Homecoming. When I started this a few months ago I had no idea that just writing up the first level of the game would take so long (18,000 words!) but I came to realize that so much in the game was left unsaid that needed to be explained, plus the addition of Mara adds a whole new layer to the story thanks to her prior interaction with many of these characters.

Rest assured that this isn't me announcing that I'm taking a break from the story or anything; I'm already something like 1,500 words into the next chapter, which will deal with the new students' arrival to the Academy and the beginning of their training, and I'm too interested in getting this part out now to slow down even with classes starting tomorrow for me. This is just me letting you all know that we're finally going to move on to the rest of the story, and that every chapter from here on out won't have the words 'Homecoming, Part XXVII' in the title. It's also because I'm excited due to this being the first story I've ever written that has managed to make it past 15,000 words (Huzzah, I say!). And that is thanks in no small part to everyone who read this and my other story (When You Can't Walk) and took the time to give me feedback on my writing; you guys rock.

And finally, in answer to some of your unspoken questions:

1. I will not be writing up every side mission that crops up in the game itself, but instead selecting a handful and expanding on them while also weaving them into the story itself (It never made sense to me why the Disciples of Ragnos showed up in some of those missions; why exactly are two cultists hanging around in a Coruscanti crime boss' penthouse waiting for me to show up? Things like that are what I plan to explore). So far I'm planning on doing both Tatooine missions (Which will be combined into one big romp), Corellia, Hoth, Zonju V, Coruscant, Vjun, Chandrila, Byss, and Taspir/Korriban. I may even add one or two of my own depending on how the planning for this story goes; we'll have to see.  
2. As you can probably see in Homecoming, I will be expanding on some of the side characters in addition to the main ones introduced in the game. The main focus will be on Mara and her training, but that doesn't mean I'll neglect everyone else.  
3. NO, there will be no RoshxMara in this story. Eeaaagghh...


	6. Aftermath

**Tales from the Jedi Academy**

**Chapter Six – Aftermath**

While Threepio led the uninjured students to the vacant quarters on the Temple's third level, Cilghal and the medics ushered the rest of them to the medical bay above the ground floor hangar. Within moments of their arrival all six of the Academy's bacta tanks were in use, and several other students were attended to by the facility's physicians.

Mara gritted her teeth as Ralth peeled the spent bacta patches from her wounds and replaced them with fresh ones. The moist wraps stung as they came into contact with the raw, semi-healed gashes. "So you're a doctor?" Mara asked, trying to keep her mind off the burning sensations dotting her arms and back.

Ralth shook his head as he dipped another bandage in a small container of bacta. "Despite what Master Katarn says, no. I am–_was_ a medic on a supply ship that made regular shipments here. Master Skywalker sensed my potential the last time I was here and requested that I be allowed leave to become a Jedi, but I decided to finish my tour before committing myself."

"Why?" Mara asked. "Most of the other students I've met couldn't wait to get here and meet Luke Skywalker himself. I'm sure your commanding officer would've been tripping over himself to accommodate the Hero of the Rebellion and have you reassigned." She tried to keep the scorn out of her voice–fame or not, she didn't think Skywalker deserved it–but winced mentally as she heard a trace of it slip through.

If Ralth caught her tone, he didn't mention it. Instead he smiled as he smoothed the bandage over the last major cut on Mara's shoulder, holding it down so the adhesive would have time to seal against her skin. "There were only three months left on my tour, and I was content to wait while I finished my duties before accepting his invitation. It wasn't a hard decision."

Mara felt her stomach sink slightly, as if someone had just turned up the gravity. "You don't like leaving a job half finished." she said quietly.

If Ralth noticed the shift in her voice, he chose to ignore it as well. "Something like that, yes."

After the bandage was secure, Ralth offered her a few words of advice regarding her recovery over the next few days before moving to the next student. Mara listened to his recommendations with half an ear; this was hardly the first time she'd been injured, and nowhere near the worst. Instead she leaned back gingerly on her cot, once again lost in thought.

_You don't like leaving a job half finished._

_Let's just say this isn't my first time here._

_I'd prefer it if the hands wielding those lightsabers had a bit of experience._

_Enough,_ she shot back to herself. _I'm here now, aren't I?_

Before she could continue arguing with herself, a familiar figure wandered into the medical bay. A human male, shorter than average height with brown hair, a well-trimmed goatee, and green eyes noticeably duller than Mara's. His Jedi tunic was a dark shade of green rather than the brown and beige favored by most of the similarly-dressed Jedi Mara had seen since arriving, and his lightsaber looked more like a handlebar from a speeder bike than a supposedly elegant weapon.

The Jedi's eyes met hers, and a grin appeared on his face. He maneuvered through the crowd of medics and students with ease and was at her bedside in moments.

Mara had to suppress a smile. "What is it with you Jedi and face fur?" she wondered aloud. "Every time I see Skywalker I expect him to have grown enough of a beard to put a Wookiee to shame."

Corran Horn, Jedi Knight and New Republic fighter ace, chuckled. "It's nice to see you too, Mara." He jerked his head towards the door. "C'mon, let's take a walk and free up the bed for someone else."

"Gladly," Mara replied, happily shoving her private doubts back into the deepest recesses of her mind and swinging her legs over the side of the bed to follow Corran.

One of the medics moved to stop Mara as they reached the door, but a few reassuring words from Corran were enough to get her checked out. "So, where to?" she asked the Corellian as they set off through the stone corridors.

"Mess hall," Corran replied. "Luke's going to be out for the rest of the day with some of the other teachers looking into the attack, so you and the other students have plenty of time to get settled in before the ceremonies start. I figure we can spend some of it getting caught up."

"That sounds…" _Like a waste of time,_ Mara would have said five years ago. "…good." A mischievous smile tugged at her mouth. "As long as Skywalker's hired a better cook since the last time I was here."

Corran adopted a hurt expression. "Hey, my cooking wasn't _that_ bad."

"It was dry rations in a _salad._"

"Better than just dry rations, which was all we had back then." He lifted his chin, centered his gaze on a point up and to his right, and held up a hand like a cheap holodrama actor. "'I was given water, and so I made wine.'"

Mara laughed, and immediately regretted it; a sharp pain lanced through her chest from her slightly-cracked ribs. "Sithspawn, that's terrible," she managed to say after a moment. "Who's that supposed to be?"

"Tetran Cowall," Corran answered. "When I was still with Rogue Squadron we'd occasionally do joint missions with the Wraiths, and I'd get an earful about him from their commander."

They passed through a stone archway and into the mess hall, which hadn't changed much since Mara had seen it last. It was a high-ceiling room with sparse furnishings; aside from rows of metal tables and chairs, the only other item of interest was the cooking area nestled in the corner of the room. There were only a handful of people present; most of them off-duty New Republic personnel catching a quick meal before returning to their work of maintaining the Temple. One of them was heating up mugs of stimcaf on a hotplate; Mara and Corran snagged a pair before finding a place to sit.

"Speaking of the Rogues," Mara said as she carefully sat down into the closest chair, "when did you decide to give up being a stick-jockey for a saber-jockey? I heard you were promoted after the business with Tavira and the Invids."

Corran nodded, and Mara could see something bubbling beneath his suddenly blank expression. "I was, but I had to request a transfer several months ago. I'm still a Jedi, but officially I'm the New Republic liaison with the Academy." He shrugged and sipped at his caf. "It's not bad, just a little extra paperwork whenever we get supply shipments and the occasional request for aide from the Inner Council to pass on to Luke. All in all, not a bad price to pay for receiving service pay while teaching apprentices."

Mara arched an eyebrow. "Who'd you con into giving you that job?"

Corran chortled into his mug. "More like who conned me _into_ it. Mirax went to Wedge last year and browbeat him into coming up with an excuse to get me assigned here."

"Why?" Mara asked. She could see a smile trying valiantly to make itself plain on Horn's face, but he was barely suppressing it. "Horn, you look like you're about to explode. Spill it already; why'd Mirax push to get you moved out of the Rogues?"

Corran looked innocently at his half-full caf mug. "Well, I can only assume she didn't like the idea of the father of her son flying combat missions and risking his life to support them."

It took a split second for the impact of what he'd said to sink in, but when it did it hit Mara like a repulsortram. "Wh-Corran, are you telling me Mirax is _pregnant?_"

"_Was_ pregnant," Corran corrected as the smile won out. "Valin Horn, five months old and healthy as a bantha."

Mara leaned back in her chair and shook her head in disbelief. "Sithspawn, Horn, we part ways for a few years and you turn _respectable_ on me. Next you'll tell me Booster's sold the _Errant Venture_ to the New Republic and signed on with the navy."

Corran coughed into his caf and managed to turn it into a chuckle as he wiped hot liquid from his beard. "I think he'd rather go rancor hunting with nothing but sticks and optimism before he'd sell that mountain of junk."

"It's always reassuring to know some things in this galaxy never change."

They continued to talk for some time, catching up on each others' lives since Mara had last visited the Academy. Corran recounted the actions Rogue Squadron had seen against various Imperial warlords in the Mid and Outer Rim, and Mara tentatively spoke about her work organizing the Smuggler's Alliance with Karrde in the fringe. As they spoke the golden light cast by the setting sun stretched across the mess hall until it began climbing up the opposite wall. A number of students, old and new, came and went in that time but none of them disturbed the two friends.

As Corran was in the middle of describing a particularly tense dogfight, an insistent beeping emerged from his tunic. He frowned and withdrew a small comlink before keying it on. "Horn here." The frown on the Corellian's face grew as he listened to whoever was on the other end. "You're absolutely sure?"

After a moment he sighed. "All right. I'll be there in five. Horn out." He deactivated the comlink and slipped it back into his tunic before rising from the table. "Sorry to cut this short, but I've got to head to the crash site. The techs just finished a preliminary check of the shuttle's repulsorlifts, and they're pretty sure it wasn't a malfunction. Master Skywalker wants me to meet with them and take a closer look."

"_I_ could have told you that," Mara remarked scornfully. "A shuttle full of Jedi trainees going down just as a platoon of stormtroopers shows up on Yavin out of nowhere?"

Corran's mouth pressed into a line. "Yeah, but what kind of stormies carry around weapons that can kill a repulsorlift drive without scratching the ship's hull?"

Mara blinked. "What?"

"Before they checked the drive, the techs went over the hull. Aside from some buckling and the gash in the starboard flank, there's no sign of external damage. No scorch marks from a laser cannon bolt, no fried circuitry from an ion beam, nothing." Corran's expression darkened. "And since we've eliminated the impossible, that only leaves one explanation."

"The cultists," Mara said. "You think they did something to the ship with the Force."

It wasn't a question, but Corran answered it with a nod. "Won't know for sure until I take a look–given the security we had at both ends of the trip I doubt it could have been sabotage–but someone with the power to blow a speeder-sized crater in a stone structure could definitely do some damage to a low-flying ship's drive."

Suddenly the air in the mess hall seemed to cool several degrees. It sent a shiver through Mara. "That's an awful lot of power," she noted, thinking back to her years as an Emperor's Hand. Vader or Palpatine had certainly been strong enough, but the former's reputation had rarely given him the chance to utilize his full potential, and Palpatine…Palpatine had always preferred to let Vader do the Empire's dirty work.

At least, the dirty work he hadn't sent Mara to do.

Corran nodded again, the small motion bringing her back into the present. "The more we seem to find out about these cultists, the worse our chances of facing them seem to get."

Mara arched an eyebrow. "What's this? What happened to the famous Halcyon bravery?"

Corran snorted. "As I recall it was more stubbornness than bravery."

"Different words, same result."

"True." His expression sobered. "Comes with being a father, I suppose. I can deal with being away from Valin and Mirax in the knowledge that I'll see them soon, but as bullheaded as I used to be–as I still am–sometimes I can't help but think of how my son would turn out if something forced him to grow up without his father. Losing _my_ father at twenty-one almost destroyed me; sometimes I lie awake in bed trying not to think of what it would do to Valin as a child."

Again, Mara's heart grew heavy and she looked down at her mug. "Especially if he's Force sensitive," she agreed.

Corran's eyes closed for a moment. "Yeah." He threw back the last of his caf and palmed the mug. "Get some rest, Mara. I'll see you and the other students tomorrow." He turned and walked out of the mess hall, dropping his mug in the sanitizer. Despite the brisk pace and slight bounce in his step, Mara's dulled senses could feel Corran's melancholy. _Kark, I sure know how to put people in the right mood._

* * *

With no one else she knew in the mess hall, Mara left shortly after Corran. By then the sun had dipped below the treeline, triggering the room's interior lighting. The trickle of students and non-Jedi personnel passing through the room grew until almost three dozen people were seated at one table or another. Some of the New Republic soldiers from the rescue shuttle were among them, so Mara reasoned that Skywalker and the other Jedi who had stayed behind to investigate the Imperial camp and crash site had returned as well. _Maybe now I can get some answers._

Thankfully the turbolift was only a short distance from the mess hall, so Mara's injuries didn't have much time to protest before the lift whisked her up to the top level of the Great Temple. The last time she had been here, Skywalker had used the grand audience chamber as his personal meditation chamber when it wasn't being used for training purposes. As Mara passed the threshold from the corridor into the room, the sight of a single black-clad figure standing in front of the transparisteel window on the far side of the room proved that was still the case.

Skywalker didn't react as she approached until she was at the foot of the stairs. "I'm sorry," he said without facing her.

Mara halted, her right foot on the first step. "Say again?"

Skywalker turned and began to descend the staircase. "I'd hoped your return to the Academy would be under better circumstances," he explained. "I knew there might be trouble from the Remnant–your group is the largest single batch of students to arrive at the Academy at once–but I never foresaw anything like this happening." He shook his head. "We still don't know how the Imperials' ship avoided detection on arrival; the sensor grid should have picked them up the moment they exited hyperspace, let alone the fact that they managed to land without any of us sensing their presence."

At such close proximity Mara could feel a wave of conflicting emotions coming from Skywalker. "Ease up on the guilt, farmboy," she admonished. "You're lit up like a homing beacon."

Skywalker's emotional broadcast dampened significantly until she could barely sense him at all. "That's 'Master' Farmboy to you, initiate," he said half-mockingly.

"Don't you start," Mara growled. "So what did you find out?"

Skywalker cocked his head at her. "I distinctly remember Kyle suggesting you focus on your training and leave the cultists to us–"

Mara gestured to the bandages crisscrossing her arms and torso. "Do I look like I'm going to be training for a few days?"

Mara caught another flash of guilt before Skywalker's mental barriers snapped shut again. "And knock that off," she continued. "The crash wasn't your fault, and my injuries are my fault. There isn't room for a third party, so butt out."

Skywalker smiled softly. "Point taken." He began walking towards the entrance to the audience chamber; wordlessly Mara fell into step beside him.

"As a matter of fact, we really weren't able to find out much," Skywalker informed her. "Corran's finishing up at the crash site now, but all he's been able to do is confirm the chief technician's report: there was no sign of weapon damage to the shuttle's hull, and what was left of the repulsorlift engine points strongly towards a Force user. Corran said it looks like the drive just…came apart mid-flight." A haunted look fell across his features. "We're lucky it didn't do a lot more damage when it failed; it could have destroyed half the shuttle."

"Destroying the shuttle wasn't the disciples' objective," Mara pointed out as they passed into the corridor. "They wanted some of us alive, at least. Why come all this way just to blow up a shuttle full of untrained Jedi candidates?" Something occurred to Mara. "In fact, why come here at all? They had the shuttle's flight plan–the cultist I fought knew who I was, so they had to have sliced the ship's manifest–they could have set up an Interdictor cruiser along our hyperspace route and captured us all long before we reached Yavin. Why risk a fight with half the Jedi in the galaxy by coming here?"

Skywalker stopped abruptly, and from the look on his face Mara knew he hadn't thought of that angle. "They wanted something else," he said ominously. "Something _here_." In a heartbeat his comlink was out and activated. "This is Skywalker," he said, his voice changing from farmboy hero to Rebel commander smoothly. "I want a full security sweep of the Great Temple and the surrounding area. Look for anything out of place; sensors, explosives, droids. I also want everyone, New Republic personnel and Jedi, accounted for. If someone's missing inform me immediately."

He flicked the comlink off and reattached it to his belt before doubling his pace. "Come with me."

Mara had to run to keep up. "Where?"

"My quarters," Skywalker answered as they whirled around a corner. "There's a list of the new recruits on my terminal. I want you to take it and check in all of the new arrivals, just in case. If the crash was a distraction, then there's a possibility the disciples might have tried to slip an infiltrator amongst the new students. If so, we need to–"

He halted so suddenly that Mara only avoided barreling into him by virtue of her danger sense–the one skill she'd managed to keep somewhat in practice with.

"What is it now?" Mara asked in irritation.

"I'm not sure." Skywalker half-closed his eyes and dipped his head for a moment.

Then his eyes opened. "Someone's been here."

With a distinctive _snap-hiss_ Skywalker's emerald lightsaber was in hand and ignited. Mara's blue blade was only a second behind it. "Come on!" Skywalker urged, sprinting forward and almost leaving Mara behind.

Mara barely managed to keep pace with him–she was pretty sure he was using the Force to replenish his stamina–but within moments they had reached the door to the Jedi Master's quarters. He waved a hand at the control panel, and the door rose out of sight with a soft _sshh_ of hydraulics. The room were dark, aside from the contrasting glows cast by their lightsabers. As soon as they stepped into the room the life sensors detected their presence and activated the ceiling lights.

Mara looked everywhere. Aside from the two of them, the only other things in the room were Skywalker's bunk, a small table with a single chair and datapad, and his desk with a simple terminal resting on its surface.

Skywalker sheathed his lightsaber once it became clear that they were the only ones present, but Mara could still feel that he was on edge. "Are you sure–" she began.

"I'm sure," he insisted. "It's subtle, but it's there. I can feel it." He closed his eyes and knelt, touching a single hand to the floor. Mara sheathed her own saber and clipped it back to her belt.

"They weren't here long ago," Skywalker said. "A few hours, perhaps. Around the time of the shuttle crash." He fell silent for several seconds. "I sense anxiety…not fear; closer to apprehension, or anticipation…"

He stood and slowly began walking towards the far side of the room. Mara began pacing the perimeter, her eyes casting about for anything out of place while wondering what sort of weapon an assassin might leave behind to kill a Jedi Master. _Not a bomb; he'd sense that out of hand. Assassin droid? There's nowhere to hide a datacard in here, let alone a droid. Gas? Too slow; he could probably hold his breath long enough to get into the hall._

Mara was jerked out of her search by a sharp intake of breath from Skywalker. She glanced over at him to see his hand resting atop his terminal. _Unless they weren't here for him…_

By the time Mara had moved to the desk Skywalker was already seated and booting up the terminal. His comlink was in hand once again. "Artoo?" he asked, typing passcodes furiously with one hand, "Artoo, I need you in my quarters. It's important."

An affirmative beep emerged from the comlink, and Skywalker set it down by the terminal.

"My passcodes haven't been changed," he said aloud, almost to himself, "and whoever was here did a good job at trying to mask their presence, so it's a good bet they intended for their infiltration to go unnoticed even after they'd gone."

"That's good," Mara said, leaning over Skywalker's shoulder. At his confused expression, she explained. "If they didn't plan for you to know what they were after, we can use that against them." _Once we find out where the fierfek they are,_ she continued mentally.

Skywalker continued typing, calling up file after file. "They've definitely accessed _something_," he said, a hint of frustration leaking through in his voice, "but I can't tell what. All of the login times for these files are dated the same: 1421 hours, today." He leaned back in his chair and pressed his hands together, the tips of his fingers resting beneath his chin. "But it would have taken them hours to download everything; even if they'd started when I first left for the crash site, they'd still be here."

"So they covered their tracks after they got what they came for," Mara reasoned. "Meaning they were after something important to you. Something they knew would raise an alarm bell if you saw it had been accessed."

From the doorway came a cheerful series of whistles, and the two of them looked up from the terminal's screen to see a blue and white R2 unit wheel into the room.

"Come over here, Artoo," Skywalker said, pushing his chair aside so the astromech could roll up to the terminal. Artoo twittered an affirmative, his wheels whirring as he rounded the desk. The droid's datajack popped out of one of its compartments–Mara swore the thing had to be a rolling violation of physics with the number of extensions and hidden gadgets it had tucked away in its chassis–and clicked into the terminal's port. Artoo beeped thoughtfully as he assumed control over the terminal, flicking through file after file faster than any sentient organic in the galaxy could follow.

"I need you to figure out which of these was accessed at the specified time and which ones had their timestamps altered," Skywalker continued, shifting to lean over Artoo in much the same way Mara had been leaning over his shoulder a moment ago. "Can you do that, buddy?"

Artoo's dome spun around to fix on Skywalker, and a dour note emerged from the droid's speaker.

Skywalker's frown deepened. "How bad?"

A low whistle. "That's pretty bad," he agreed.

"What's pretty bad?" Mara interrupted, irritated at only being able to comprehend half of the conversation. _One of these days I've got to ask Skywalker how the hell he understands these things._

"Artoo says whoever sliced my files also introduced some sort of dormant security program," Skywalker explained. "He says if he tries to slice through the false timestamps and recover the real ones, there's a good chance it'll activate and execute whatever its directive is; probably mass erasure of the drive."

Mara grimaced. "Meaning even if we crack the dummy login times, we won't have any way of knowing if the one they accessed was deleted in the purge. Clever."

"Artoo," Skywalker said, "how long for you to isolate the program and get rid of it?"

Artoo swiveled his photoreceptors to the screen, then back to Skywalker. An optimistic beep.

"A few _weeks_?"

Artoo imitated the sound of an irritated child.

"Yes, of course I want you to do it right." Skywalker sighed, closing his eyes and tilting his head back for a moment. When he opened his eyes, all traces of stress had faded. "All right, go ahead and get started. Let me know the second you find something."

Artoo whistled happily and swiveled his dome back to the terminal, his datajack already twisting and turning in the slot.

Skywalker motioned for Mara to follow him to the door. She fell into step beside as they entered the hallway. "So what now?" she asked.

Skywalker considered the question for a moment. "We didn't pick up their shuttle on the way in, but the sensor grid caught a glimpse of it on its way out. We can ask the New Republic to send some scouts along their vector and see if any likely planets crop up; maybe they'll get lucky and find something."

_Not kriffing likely,_ Mara thought, _considering how well they've been covering their tracks everywhere else._ "And?"

Skywalker offered her a shrug. The gesture was more farmboy than Jedi Master. "Beyond that, there isn't much we can do other than wait for Artoo to finish cleaning up my files."

"He said that'll take _weeks_," Mara protested. Every instinct was screaming at her that letting the issue go was a bad decision.

_Instinct,_ a part of her asked, _or the Force?_

"He did," Skywalker replied. "Unfortunately, since that's our only lead on these cultists I'm afraid we'll just have to oblige him. If we try to go straight for the data we need, we could lose it altogether."

Mara blew out a frustrated sigh. "You always did take it slow and careful."

Skywalker offered her a sad smile, flexing his right hand. "Not always."

* * *

Skywalker led her to back down to the hangar, where she was able to snag her carry-on and its contents, before taking her up to the apprentices' quarters. For the duration of the trek, he would hear no further talk about the cultists. "You didn't come here to chase down dark side-worshippers," he insisted when she tried to press the issue, "You came here to become a Jedi. Leave the rest to me."

Since it was obvious no amount of arguing was going to get her anywhere–again–Mara grudgingly agreed.

Skywalker stopped in front of one of the many durasteel doors the Rebellion had installed during their stay on Yavin over a decade earlier. "These quarters belonged to a Knight who recently graduated," he explained. "She's returned to her homeworld to teach some of her people in the use of the Force, so you won't have to worry about getting an unexpected roommate. I know you like privacy."

Mara gave him a side look, an odd feeling stirring in her. "Thanks."

"I'm going to check in with Master Cilghal," he continued, "but the initiation ceremony will be in the Grand Audience Chamber tomorrow at 0500 hours. Barring any more surprises of the Imperial sort, I'll expect to see you there."

Mara nodded. "Count on it." As Skywalker strode away, Mara reached for the door controls…and hesitated. "Hey, Luke."

He paused and turned to face her, his expression curious.

The words caught in Mara's throat, but she managed to force them out. "Thanks for giving me another chance."

Skywalker smiled and shook his head. "This _isn't_ a second chance, Mara. However long it takes you to become a Jedi…I'm confident it'll happen sooner or later." His eyes twinkled. "I have a feeling."

With that, the Jedi Master was gone.

Mara slung her bag over one shoulder before slapping the door controls. The durasteel plate hissed open, revealing a small room cut into the stone with a military-issue cot and a small footlocker. The only other notable feature was a small compartment in the back, likely the refresher. _Not exactly the VIP suite in the Imperial Palace, but that suits me just fine._ She tossed her bag onto the open footlocker, deciding she'd unpack after the ceremony tomorrow, and collapsed onto the cot.

Within moments she slipped into blissful unconsciousness.


End file.
